SlijF  S-  B.  Bill  IGtbrarQ 

Nortlj  (Earaltna  i^talp 


0^81 
T47 


This  book  was  presented  by 

Alfred  B.  Yeomans 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  DATE 
INDICATED  BELOW  AND  IS  SUB- 
JECT TO  AN  OVERDUE  FINE  AS 
POSTED  AT  THE  CIRCULATION 
DESK. 


lOOM/l-77 


fID?  Minter  (Barren 


Cb^  Winter  (Barben 


A   NATURE-LOVER   UNDER 
SOUTHERN  SKIES 


BY 
MAURICE  THOMPSON 


Z\K  Centur?  Co. 

1900 


Copyright,  1900,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


The  DeVinne  Press. 


To  my  wife,  Alice  Lee,  I  dedicate  this  hook, 
because  it  is  as  much  hers  as  mine.  She 
shared  the  experiences  herein  recorded,  and 
her  influence  is  in  every  jyage.  "  My  Winter 
Garden  "  is  our  win ter  garden.  We  tramped 
together  in  all  the  places  I  have  described; 
we  camped  together  on  lonely  spots;  we  sat 
together  on  the  breezy  bluffs  and  read, 
sketched,  and  made  notes.  She  carried  my 
extra  arrows  on  many  a  shooting-ground, 
where  the  birds  ivere  wary  and  wild.  Why 
shoidd  not  her  name  be  here?  To  with- 
hold it  looidd  be  to  rob  my  booh  of  a  right, 
and  to  deny  myself  an  ineffable  pleasure. 


VI 1 


88855 


preface 

WADING  in  deep  ''  tides  of  grass,"  as 
Swinburne  phrases  it,  and  stirring 
with  one's  boots  a  ''  foam  of  flowers,"  has 
not  become  a  mere  tradition.  I  could, 
were  I  a  poet,  add  something  to  reality  in 
song  by  rhyming  my  annual  experiences 
in  the  South ;  but  even  in  plain  prose  I  am 
no  adept,  wherefore  I  shall  be  glad  enough 
if  my  facts  make  amends  for  my  style.  A 
lover  of  nature  and  books  may  feel,  while 
reading  these  pages,  some  wafts  of  a  fresh- 
ness not  mine,  out  of  which  I  hope  to  get 
due  credit  for  what  I  have  not  done. 
There  seems  to  be  no  moral  turpitude  in 
connection  with  stealing  from  the  book  of 

ix 


Ipretace 

the  wilderness  and  the  music-sheets  of  the 
winds.  A  man's  song  is  his  property ;  a 
bird's  song  is  the  robber's  own.  If  I 
snatch  a  sketch  from  nature's  easel,  even 
before  its  colors  are  dry,  I  go  my  way 
refreshed  by  my  theft. 

And  the  next  thing  after  doing  a  deed 
is  to  tell  about  it  so  that  it  shall  not  lose 
the  smack  of  native  distinction,  that  fra- 
grant and  pungent  something  which  in 
fruit  we  call  a  zest.  To  this  end  I  have 
relied  largely  upon  notes  scratched  down, 
hurriedly  sometimes  and  sometimes  with 
self-conscious  deliberation,  in  all  sorts  of 
places  and  under  the  varied  circumstances 
of  a  wandering,  out-of-doors  life  given  to- 
day to  a  book  and  a  pleasant  forest  shade, 
to-morrow  to  my  sporting-tackle,  and  the 
day  after,  perhaps,  to  a  sail  on  some 
lonely  and  lovely  bay,  with  a  stiff  breeze 
and  the  old  Greek's  "  multitudinous  laugh 
of  the  sea"  clashing  bravely  in   my  ears. 


preface 

For  the  deeds  told  in  this  book  are  mostly 
of  the  Hghtest  nature,  such  as  men  do 
in  their  hours  of  play  between  strenuous 
labors  not  so  easy  to  note  down.  Doings  of 
my  season  of  recreation  are  here  put  to- 
gether at  haphazard.  Thoughts  of  my 
idlest  days  have  the  right  of  way  over 
these  pages. 

But  may  I  hope  that  my  thoughts  and 
deeds  are  not  so  idle  as  to  be  trivial? 
Whatever  is  wholesome  cannot  be  without 
a  certain  value.  I  shall  be  glad  if  my 
notes  and  sketches  have  in  them  a  strong 
trace  of  the  gentle  exhilaration  caught  from 
exercise  in  the  open  air  and  from  those 
indescribable  explosions  of  freshness  felt  at 
sunrise,  when  the  archer's  boots  are  wet 
with  dew  and  the  shore-birds  are  clamor- 
ous on  a  white  beach-line  beyond  the 
marsh.  Nor  can  I  deny  the  comfort  it 
would  give  me  to  know  that  lovers  of 
good  old  books  will  sympathize  with  my 


preface 

reading  of  Montaigne,  Theocritus,  Ascham, 
and  the  rest,  under  the  wide-armed  trees 
of  the  Southern  low  country. 

Most  of  my  sketches  have  been  more  or 
less  revised  and  rewritten  after  their  ap- 
pearance in  the  "  Critic,"  the  "  Century," 
the  "  Cosmopolitan,"  and  the  *'  Inde- 
pendent." Kindness  and  courtesy  from 
the  editors  of  these  great  journals  must  be 
acknowledged  here. 


xn 


Content0 


PAGE 

My  Winter  Garden         .        .        .        .       i 

An  Idyl  of  the  Gulf  Coast 

Paradise  Circle 34 

Where  the  Mocking-bird  Sings    .        .  66 

A  Poet  of  the  Poor    ....  98 

Shrike-notes 116 

With  a  Buffon  Interlude 

The  Touch  of  Inspiration  .        .       140 

A  Marsh-land  Incident  .        .        .        -149 

Art  and  Money 162 

Return  to  Nature i74 

By  a  Woodland  Spring       .        .        .182 

A  Swamp  Beauty 191 

In  the  Woods  with  the  Bow     .        .       201 
Under  a  Dogwood  with  Montaigne     .  242 


Xlll 


riDi?  Minter  (Barben 


flDl?  Mlnter  (Bar&en 

AN   IDYL   OF   THE   GULF   COAST 

A  BREEZY  headland  curving  parallel 
with  the  line  of  a  fair  horizon ;  some 
cat-boats  and  luggers  leaning  against  the 
sky ;  a  smell  of  acacia  whisked  along  in 
broken  puffs  ;  a  wandering  sound  of  uncer- 
tain quality  passing  between  the  white- 
capped  sea  and  the  dusky  pine  woods 
afar;  roses  tossed  about  on  emerald 
sprays;  great  sea-birds  winging  aloft — 
and  I  in  the  midst  of  this  my  Winter 
Garden,  loafing  under  a  yaupon-tree. 

Two  days  ago,  at  the  hour  of  noon,  a 
snow-storm,  an  Eskimo  wind,  the  earth 
frozen  to  granite  solidity,  and  icicles  clink- 
ing on  the  boughs  of  my  Indiana  apple- 
orchard,  when  our  southward  flight  was 
I  I 


/ID^  winter  Garden 

begun.  We  left  the  blue  jays,  muffled 
and  ill-tempered,  jeering  in  the  bare  hedge 
of  bois  dare  at  Sherwood  Place,  where  but 
lately  the  grackles  and  robins  made  a  great 
din  on  the  eve  of  migration.  Two  days 
ago,  bear  in  mind,  wrapped  to  the  eyes 
in  fur  of  otter  and  seal,  gasping  against 
the  ringing,  frost-spiked  strokes  of  a 
norther,  we  gave  chase  to  the  migrating 
thrushes;  and  now  I  loll  drowsily  by  the 
Gulf-side,  making  note  of  some  gray  peli- 
cans striking  mullet  in  the  tepid  surf- waves 
five  rods  from  the  beach.  Beside  a  wall 
of  shell  concrete,  crumbling  and  vine- 
matted,  great  rusty  yellow  oranges  still 
hang  on  a  tree.  In  the  yaupon  overhead 
are  masses  of  scarlet  berries,  temptingly 
fresh  and  luscious  in  appearance,  but  bitter 
as  disappointment  can  be. 

The  season  is  winter;  a  weather  report 
in  the  morning  paper  tells  of  five  de- 
grees below  zero  at  some  point  in  Wis- 
consin, and  of  a  blizzard  spinning  down 
from  Canada  across  country  to  the  Wa- 
bash and  the  Kankakee;  and  yet  my 
nostrils  realize  what  the  violets  spill  and 
2 


/ID^  Minter  0arben 

the  roses  loose  in  the  open  air — sweets 
rarer  than   summer's  best. 

Skirting  the  indefinite  area  called  the 
semi-tropic,  a  thermal  dream  hangs  in  the 
air.  You  enter  it  when,  on  your  southward 
flight,  your  railway-train  w^hisks  round  a 
sharp  curve  by  the  Gulf- shore.  The  first 
hint  of  it  is  a  dash  of  salt  in  the  air;  then 
you  catch  the  shimmer  flung  from  rollicking 
whitecaps;  and  presently,  far  away,  in  a 
turquoise  film,  an  island  comes  to  view 
with  a  lighthouse,  a  clump  of  palmettos, 
and  some  mossy  live-oaks  behind  its  daz- 
zHng  sand-spit,  which  cuts  the  haze  and 
seems  obtrusively  real  in  the  midst  of  a 
dream.  The  change  is  so  easy  and  so 
sudden  that  it  gives  the  fine  surprise  of  a 
new  rhyme  in  a  song. 

Doubtless  our  migrant  birds  have  an  ob- 
scure sense  of  the  beauty  which  even  we 
cannot  fully  reahze — the  dreamy,  elusive 
display  of  formless  and  tenuous  sub- 
stance hovering  along  the  line  where 
summer  is  a  perpetually  resident  spirit. 
The  first  thing  I  note,  on  arriving  at  my 
Winter  Garden  each  year,  is  the  apparent 
3 


jflD^  Mtnter  aarDen 

wondering  curiosity  with  which  the  birds, 
just  dropping  down  from  the  North,  go 
about  in  the  golden  weather,  silently  flit- 
ting from  tree  to  tree,  peering  askance 
amid  the  dusky  foliage,  evidently  affected 
by  the  change  of  surroundings.  They 
behave  much  as  do  the  human  tourists 
who  come  a  Httle  later  on  their  limited 
railway-tickets.  Everything  is  theirs  for 
the  time  being.  They  chatter  when  they 
meet,  invade  all  private  closes,  and  pres- 
ently disappear,  going  still  farther  south- 
ward, even  beyond  the  great  Gulf. 

It  would  probably  be  best  to  make  the 
journey  into  the  South  a  desultory,  hesi- 
tating flight,  lingering  by  the  way  in  all 
the  attractive  places,  thus  softly  stealing 
through  the  climatic  change ;  but  there  is 
something  exhilarating  in  a  sudden  plunge 
from  boreal  cold  to  an  atmosphere  of  balm 
and  bloom-dust.  Some  people,  who  flock 
and  flutter  hurriedly  round  the  swift  loop 
of  a  winter  tour,  find  the  warm  weather 
enervating.  It  has  the  effect  of  a  light 
yet  heady  wine  on  me.  No  sooner  have 
I  passed  through  the  palmetto-shaded 
4 


/ID^  Mlntet  (5ar^en 

gate  of  my  Winter  Garden  than  my  blood 
bubbles,  as  it  did  when  in  boyhood  I 
climbed  to  the  top  of  Yonah,  and  swung 
my  hunting-cap  for  joy,  stimulated  beyond 
silent  endurance  by  the  upper  streams  of 
air.  The  strong  tipples  freely  wasted  by 
the  bucaneers  have  made  this  Caribbean 
breeze  deliciously  intoxicating.  All  na- 
ture blinks,  nods,  drowses  in  its  fitful  cur- 
rent. Yet  nothing  seems  to  sleep.  The 
long  moss  moves  warily ;  the  oleanders 
never  quite  close  their  eyes  ;  the  palmettos 
wag  their  bayonets  at  the  shrinking  and 
swaying  roses ;  nor  at  any  time  do  the 
great  pines  and  stately  magnolias  fall 
silent 

While  early  midwinter  is  not  the  season 
of  flowers,  even  on  the  Creole  coast,  we 
frequently  have  a  swell  of  precocious 
springtide  in  December  and  January, 
which  lifts  the  sap  from  root  to  tip  in  the 
plants  and  trees,  greening  the  twigs  and 
freshening  the  bark  and  leaves.  A  pear- 
orchard  will  fling  out  tender  vernal  ban- 
ners, with  a  dash  of  snowy  petals  among 
the  sprays,  affording  a  certain  fruity  efflu- 
5 


/IDp  Mintet  (Barren 

ence  bandied  about  by  the  gusts.  Beside 
a  wall,  or  in  the  warmest  angle  of  a  cot, 
the  lush  banana-stalks,  clumpered  pictur- 
esquely against  a  hedge  of  Cherokee  rose- 
vines,  suddenly  renew  their  upper  leaves ; 
and  scattered  here  and  yonder  some 
gnarled  peach-trees  blow  wavering  whiffs 
of  tender  pink  from  their  bare  branches. 

It  may  be  that  early  in  February,  or 
even  late  in  January,  a  mulberry-tree  be- 
gins to  show  fruit.  Once  I  saw  the  ripe 
berries  *'  cooked  to  a  turn  "  by  a  singeing 
frost  on  the  second  day  of  March;  but 
that  was  a  memorably  unusual  freak  of 
weather.  The  mocking-birds  were  begin- 
ning to  build,  the  brave  males  in  full 
feather  and  song,  when  the  norther 
swooped  upon  us,  and  it  was  pitiful  to  see 
how  dazed  they  looked.  It  was  as  if  the 
blast  from  Michigan  or  Kansas  had  blown 
their  frozen  songs  in  choking  crystals  back 
down  their  throats. 

The  Winter   Garden   is  a  shifting  and 

elastic  domain ;  for  in  the  low  country  of 

the  South  no  such  thing  as  a  boundary  is 

seriously   considered.     All   the    adjoining 

6 


m^  Mtntet  0art)en 

lands  are  yours;  what  you  can  see  you 
hold.  I  claim  as  my  heronry  a  marsh- 
meadow  of  an  extent  unknown.  So  vast 
is  it  that  schooners  and  luggers  and  lum- 
ber-tugs go  through  it  along  many  bayous. 
Sportsmen  have  shooting-boxes  in  lonely 
spots  on  these  waterways,  where  wild  fowl 
congregate  temptingly.  I  hear  the  far 
booming  of  guns,  and  with  my  glass  see 
puffs  of  pale  smoke  jet  suddenly  and  then 
drift  away. 

Coming  from  our  thick-walled  Northern 
house  at  Sherwood  Place  to  the  typical 
cottage  of  the  Creole  is  a  change  as  sharp 
as  that  of  climate.  The  rooms  have  been 
duly  aired  against  our  arrival,  but  there 
hangs  all  about  a  musty  odor;  the  beds 
threaten  us  with  mildew;  the  ceiling  and 
wainscoting  exhale  a  chill;  the  halls  and 
chambers  seem  atrociously  drafty  from  all 
directions.  Every  year  we  experience 
the  same  discomfort ;  every  year  we  duly 
find  out  that  it  means  nothing  dangerous ; 
yet,  all  the  same,  every  year  we  feel  mor- 
tally aggrieved  that  our  advent  has  not 
been  specially  prepared  for  by  the  genius 
7 


m's  Mtnter  OarDen 

of  the  semi-tropics,  and  the  opportunity 
to  grumble  is  flooded  with  appreciatory 
acceptance.  To  be  sure,  a  little  later, 
when  the  tourists  mutter  and  complain  at 
everything  and  everybody,  we  console 
them  with  self-satisfied  promptness,  saying 
that  it  is  all  a  delusion,  that  in  fact  the 
beds  are  not  musty,  the  halls  not  drafty, 
and  that  a  fire  on  the  hearth  would  be  an 
insult  to  a  climate  so  balmy.  What !  toast 
your  shins  indoors,  while  in  the  open  air 
great  beds  of  violets  are  ablow,  roses 
flaunting,  jonquils  flaming,  and  an  ole- 
ander hedge  is  winking  full-flowered  at 
the  sun? 

Sometime  I  shall  have  to  thank  a 
meteorologist,  the  Weather  Bureau,  or 
whomsoever  can  explain  to  me  why  it  is 
that  up  yonder  in  my  Northern  home  in 
winter  if  the  thermometer  in  a  room  regis- 
ters as  low  as  sixty-four  there  must  be  a 
good  fire  built  at  once,  while  down  South 
we  sit  out  of  doors  at  the  same  tempera- 
ture without  a  shiver.  Moreover,  why 
does  one  from  the  North,  freshly  released 
out  of  a  zero  blizzard,  have  to  muflie  up 
8 


/IDp  Minter  (Barben 

in  storm  furs  and  fleece-lined  overshoes 
when  first  dropping  into  weather  just 
below  seventy  in  a  low  latitude?  Man, 
bird,  every  migrant^  knows  of  these  curi- 
ous contradictions  of  temperature  and  feel- 
ing. The  experience  doubtless  has  a  dry 
and  perfectly  wooden  explanation  suitable 
to  works  of  science  and  dusty  brains ;  but 
you  and  I,  being  subject  to  our  senses, 
cannot  comprehend  it.  Let  us,  therefore, 
drop  the  subject  as  the  slow-footed  half- 
breed  passing  yonder  drops  the  rind  of  a 
grape-fruit  orange,  because  really  it  has  no 
further  interest,  and  go  in  to  luncheon  of 
oyster  gumbo  and  broiled  flounder.  After 
that,  if  you  smoke,  here  is  the  veranda 
facing  the  dancing  sea,  beyond  which 
loom  two  or  three  gulf-caps  against  the 
daintiest  sky  that  ever  curved  over  a 
world.  A  few  sips  of  black  cofi'ee  add 
something  to  your  comprehension  of  the 
garden  spreading  far  and  fair  around  you. 
Coffee  in  the  open  air,  holding  its  heat, 
testifies  to  winter's  good  character,  as  like- 
wise does  the  chameleon  on  the  leaf  of 
sago-palm  yonder.  A  lizard  never  mis- 
9 


m^s  mintcv  Oav^cn 

takes  the  weather,  no  matter  what  blun- 
ders are  on  the  thermometer's  record  ;  and 
of  all  lizards  this  little  blotch  of  changeable 
color  is  most  sensitive  to  his  atmospheric 
and  substantial  environment.  Riley's 
tree-frog  may  have  more  power  over  the 
rain-clouds  than  my  gay  imitation  of  a 
three-inch  saurian— he  may  have  told  the 
whole  truth  when  he  squeaked : 

"  I  fetched  her,  oh,  I  fetched  her  !  " 

and  maybe,  in  sheer  despair,  the  cloud  did 
cry  downward : 

'^fyou  '11  quit,  I  '11  rain!" 

But  our  modest  chameleon  has  no  quarrel 
with  the  sun,  being  content  to  take  the 
warm  shine  in  lazy,  basking  silence,  or  in 
creeping  with  many  a  shift  of  color,  snap- 
ping the  insects  unaware  as  they  hum  and 
dance  amid  the  leaves.  If  a  norther  fall 
suddenly  he  will  scurry  down  into  the  nest 
he  knows  of  in  the  palm's  frowzy  crown, 
and  patiently  await  the  return  of  pleasant 
warmth. 

Many  birds  also  have  a  barometric  and 

lO 


/ID^  Mlntet  Garden 

thermometric  faculty,  knowing  sometime 
beforehand  of  a  change  in  the  pressure  and 
temperature  of  the  atmosphere.  We  sit  on 
the  veranda  facing  the  Gulf,  and  can  fore- 
say  a  stiff  blow  from  the  southward  by  the 
coming  in  of  shore-birds  off  those  dim  and 
treacherous  islands  far  away  yonder.  In- 
stinct assures  the  killdees  and  sandpipers  of 
a  great  dash  which  shall  submerge  all  the 
spits  and  marshes  where  they  feed;  so 
here  they  come  flickering  to  our  headland 
where  the  beach-line  is  sheltered.  I  see 
them  first  just  this  side  of  the  horizon,  a 
low,  swinging  and  loitering  rank  of  silvery 
wings,  winking  like  pale  flames  above  the 
blue  water.  Gradually  they  seem  to  rise, 
growing  more  and  more  distinct,  and  a  few 
minutes  later  they  arrive.  Next  day  a 
storm  is  sure  to  be  on.  The  curve  of 
islands  has  disappeared  under  a  tremen- 
dous splash  of  sea;  gulls,  pelicans,  teal, 
and  other  wild  aquatic  things  have  joined 
the  plovers  ;  our  beach  looks  as  if  a  winged 
army  had  suddenly  landed  upon  it. 

The  house  commanding  our  garden  is 
a  rude  structure  into  which  not  the  least 
II 


/ID^  Mtnter  6ar^en 

architectural  art  has  ever  entered,  not  even 
by  stealth.  It  spreads  its  body  and  wings 
widely  out,  like  those  of  a  chicken  in  the 
sun,  having  an  air  decidedly  self-compla- 
cent, its  low  and  disproportionately  broad 
verandas  smothered  in  vines. 

Great  Hve-oaks  embower  it,  letting  fall  a 
beard  of  Spanish  moss  to  dangle  on  the 
roof-slopes.  Loopholes  are  made  in  the 
vines  so  as  to  give  a  full  view  of  every 
space  and  vista,  while  out  in  an  area,  be- 
side a  huge  century-plant,  stands  a  sun- 
dial brought  here  a  hundred  and  thirty 
years  ago  by  a  seafaring  Frenchman, 
whose  name,  Francois  Victor  de  Mont- 
martin,  is  cut  in  the  base.  I  could  tell 
you  a  story,  as  told  to  me,  of  this  same 
Frangois,  but  you  would  not  care  for  it 
— a  story  of  almost  ancient  flavor,  about 
a  young  wife  he  brought  here  from  San 
Domingo  or  some  other  distant  land,  and 
housed  in  a  cabin,  or  rather  a  spacious  log 
pen  thatched  with  palms.  He  loved  her 
madly,  surrounded  her  with  rich  things 
from  all  climes,  clothed  her  in  queenly 
splendors,  and  watched  her  by  day  and  by 

12 


/IDp  Mtnter  Garden 

night,   as  if  he  feared  she  would  vanish 
upon   first   exposure   to   solitude. 

As  for  the  lady,  she  seemed  neither 
greatly  interested  nor  wholly  indifferent. 
Her  beauty  of  face  and  form  suited  well 
her  priceless  finery  of  dress  and  jewels; 
but  she  did  not  show  pride  or  haughtiness. 
Every  one  loved  her.  In  that  strange 
sylvan  home  amid  the  palms,  cacti,  and 
roses,  she  Hved  nearly  two  years,  and 
meantime  bore  a  child  which  was  glori- 
ously beautiful.  The  dark  husband 
beamed  with  passionate  joy,  scarcely  ever 
passing  an  hour  out  of  sight  of  his  wife 
and  babe.  It  was  all  a  great  mystery, 
however,  and  the  people  somehow  got  ear 
of  a  rumor,  vague  enough  to  be  romantic, 
which  hinted  that  the  young  wife  was  not 
happy  and  that  the  husband  feared  lest 
she   should   escape   from   him. 

Rarely  is  a  story  so  crisp  and  short 
when  love  and  mystery  combine,  but  this 
one  ended  in  an  explosion,  as  it  were ;  for 
on  a  fine  day  in  April  a  fleet  and  beautiful 
vessel  sailed  into  this  bight  of  ours.  A 
boat  was  lowered,  manned  by  six  stalwart 
13 


m^  mintcv  Garden 

sailors  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  directed  by 
a  grand-looking  old  man,  whose  white 
beard  fell  in  ripples  to  his  waistband. 
The  ship,  the  sailors,  and  the  venerable, 
giantesque  commander  had  every  mark  of 
wealth  and  power  about  them. 

Now,  when  M.  Fran9ois  Victor  de 
Montmartin  saw  the  vessel,  which  had 
actually  come  to  anchor  close  inshore  be- 
fore he  observed  it,  he  uttered  a  great  cry, 
and  rushed  to  the  chamber  of  his  wife  and 
babe ;  but  they  were  not  there,  and  when 
he  looked  out  of  a  window  he  saw  a  glori- 
ously robed  form  with  a  child  in  its  arms 
flying  down  the  headland  slope  to  the 
beach.  Again  he  let  go  that  terrible  cry 
of  anguish,  dashed  out  in  furious  pursuit, 
and  was  shot  dead,  midway  between  the 
house  and  the  beach. 

Away  sailed  the  superb  vessel,  with  the 
young  woman  and  her  child  on  board,  and 
that  was  all  ever  known  about  them.  A 
clump  of  acacia  is  said  to  mark  the  spot 
on  the  highest  swell  of  our  bluff  where 
Fran9ois  Victor  de  Montmartin  was  buried. 
But  then,  to  say  the  whole  truth,  every 
14 


/ID^  Minter  (Barben 

angle  and  curve  of  this  Creole  coast,  from 
Tampa  around  to  Bay  St.  Louis,  has  its 
story  of  strange  arrivals  and  romantic 
disappearances — a  current  of  picturesque 
legend  doubtless  strongly  tinctured  with 
truth. 

One  feature  of  our  domain,  rarely 
observable  elsewhere,  is  the  blending  of 
savage  nature  with  the  most  advanced  re- 
sults of  landscape  culture.  Two  hundred 
years  have  sHpped  back  into  shadow  since 
civilized  man  first  appeared  hereabout; 
but  before  that,  possibly  for  many 
centuries,  Indians  had  the  good  taste  to 
regard  our  airy  white  bluffs  with  favor, 
coming  in  summer  to  camp  all  around 
under  the  Hve-oaks,  magnolias,  and  liquid- 
amber  trees,  and  to  bathe  in  the  salt  surf. 
Numerous  plants  not  native  to  the  spot 
have  been  brought  by  white  man  and  red 
from  afar  and  planted.  Since  then,  dur- 
ing periods  throughout  which  the  whole 
coast  was  abandoned,  these  representa- 
tives of  an  alien  flora  have  slipped  out  of 
the  closes  and  crept  away  year  by  year 
into  the  woods,  across  glade  and  marsh, 
15 


/IDs  Mtnter  Garben 

adapting  themselves  to  soil  and  climate, 
thus  becoming,  after  a  long  lapse  of  time, 
as  indigenous  as  the  Creoles  themselves. 
I  have  seen  acacia  in  full  flower  scenting 
an  apparently  primitive  nook  in  a  forest ; 
but  there  I  have  also  noted  long,  well- 
defined  cotton-ridges,  with  pine-trees 
eighteen  inches  through  the  bole  growing 
thick  upon  them  and  between,  indicating 
a  time  when  the  slave  plowmen  worked 
and  sang  there  in  vast  open  fields  given  to 
the  operations  of  that  strange  system  of 
agriculture  generated  by  a  civiHzation  the 
most  picturesque  ever  wiped  out  by  re- 
lentless Progress. 

Sojourning  in  such  a  region,  one  has  a 
sense  of  vague  records  upon  records 
stamped  in  the  soil,  making  it  a  sort  of 
palimpsest  where  the  old-time  roving 
Spaniard,  the  daring  Frenchman,  the 
bucaneer,  the  early  colonist,  and  the 
lordly  mid-century  planter  have  each 
traced  his  aspirations,  his  deeds,  and  finally 
his  characteristic  sign  manual  to  attest  his 
good  faith  or  his  reckless  defiance.  The 
women,  too,  have  sketched  many  a  touch- 
i6 


/ID^  Mtnter  (Barren 

ing  paragraph  in  this  curious  history.  The 
pansies  they  lovingly  tended  so  long  ago 
are  now  found  blowing  in  waste  places, 
dwindled  to  mere  specks  of  purple  and 
yellow,  hardy  yet  pathetic  descendants  of 
a  royal  ancestry.  Nor  should  it  be 
offensive  to  remark  that  somehow  the 
Creoles  themselves  seem  more  beholden  to 
the  past  than  to  the  present  for  a  certain 
fine  charm  of  spirit  and  manner.  There 
is,  indeed,  a  medieval  bouquet  haunting 
the  air  in  the  vicinity  of  every  French 
cottage  in  the  warm  low  country.  Time 
works  a  truly  artistic  deception  by  touch- 
ing with  lines  of  age  the  roof  and  walls, 
the  rude  fences,  and  the  rickety  scup- 
pernong  arbors.  Surely,  you  will  think, 
this  place,  with  its  gnarled  fig-trees  and 
its  moss-tapestried  orange-orchard,  dates 
back  into  the  days  of  chain-armor  and 
carven  crossbows.  It  would  hardly  sur- 
prise one  to  see  Friar  Tuck  fill  up  the 
cabin's  low  front  door  with  his  massive 
body  and  genially  truculent  face. 

The  little  lady  who  presides  in  theWinter 
Garden  has  a  theory  assuming  that  what- 
17 


/IDs  Mintet  Garden 

ever  is  old  is  precious,  and  that  whatever 
is  faded,  discolored,  moldy,  or  dilapidated 
is  old.  She  it  is  who  has  enriched  the  li- 
brary with  dog-eared  French  volumes  from 
the  second-hand  book-stores  in  a  street 
named  Royal,  but  smelling  distinctly  ple- 
beian. Thence,  too,  she  fetches  Venetian 
bottles  and  glasses,  squat  brass  candle- 
sticks, and  grim  little  claw-footed  tables  to 
match  an  Empire  desk  of  the  same  smoky 
mahogany,  much  patched  and  re-glued. 
Like  a  busy,  self-satisfied  bird  building  a 
nest  out  of  faded  shreds  of  last  year's 
autumn  leaves  and  bark  with  a  few  bits 
of  snake-skin  and  two  or  three  bright  fea- 
thers, she  has  woven  a  charm  against  the 
rough  walls  and  above  the  gaping  fireplace. 
Such  is  the  magnetic  allurement  of  this 
shelved  and  book-dusty  and  archaic  den 
that  when  a  norther  comes,  giving  practical 
excuse  for  a  pile  of  burning  logs  on  the 
hearth,  a  steaming  kettle  on  the  crane,  and 
a  semicircle  of  complacent  sitters  in  the 
glow, we  all  forget  our  low-country  environ- 
ment, and  behave  as  true  Northerners,  one 
of  us  reading  aloud,  the  rest  listening,  not 
i8 


/IDp  Mtnter  (5at^en 

more  to  the  literary  mouthing  than  to  the 
loud  boom  of  wind  in  the  chimney-top. 
Strangely  distinct  at  intervals,  cutting 
sharply,  yet  not  shrilly,  down  through 
night's  tumult,  comes  the  cry  of  a  wander- 
ing sea-fowl  from  far  aloft,  where  bird  and 
storm-cloud  career  wing  and  wing  against 
a  dusky  sky.  It  is  an  hour  for  one  of  those 
ample  romances  written  before  the  ink- 
pots of  genius,  running  dry  of  magic  fluid, 
were  refilled  with  a  gross  solution  of  raw 
realism.  Come,  Ivanhoe,  come,  D'Ar- 
tagnan,  come,  any  hero  of  the  mighty  ages, 
and  make  us  forget  the  story  of  debauch- 
ing innuendo  and  ill-favored  love.  Better 
coarse  deeds  of  arms  than  flabby  and 
unsound  domestic  morals  set  in  a  frame 
of  unholy  suggestion. 

On  the  very  next  morning  after  the 
night  of  storm  a  twittering  of  small  birds 
in  the  mossy  tangles  round  about  calls  up 
the  sun  from  a  swaying  sea,  out  of  which 
he  flares  gloriously,  like  a  tremendous  fire- 
lily  blossoming  against  the  sky.  It  is  well 
worth  the  efl"ort  to  rise  early  and  see  this. 
Moreover,  the  oyster  fleet  goes  out  be- 
19 


mv  Mtntet  (Batmen 

times,  a  straggling  line  of  bellying  sails 
drawing  away  with  the  stately  grace  of 
wild  fowl,  each  smack  traihng  behind  it  a 
tow-line  at  the  end  of  which  bobs  a  dark 
little  boat  wherefrom  the  oystermen  will 
let  down  their  tongs  to  grapple  the  shells 
in  the  muddy  sea-floor.  A  twinge  of 
chilliness,  a  nipping  edge  on  the  air,  sug- 
gests frost;  but  there  is  none.  All  this 
shivering  does  no  more  than  brace  one's 
appetite  for  breakfast— that  fragrant 
morning  function  of  our  fat  black  cook, 
who  speaks  gumbo  French,  and  brews  a 
coffee  delightful  beyond  praise.  If  you 
are  educated  to  the  altitude  of  taste  which 
brooks  a  Bordelais  steak  piping  hot  and 
overtopped  with  onion,  garlic,  red  pepper, 
and  bacon-drip,  move  lively  when  the  bell 
rings,  or  you  may  have  but  a  savory  and 
fragrant  bone  to  pick  for  your  share, 
which  would  be  a  notable  loss  in  our 
climate,  where  trencher  delights  seem  more 
vivid  than  in  colder  surroundings. 

Speaking  of  mensal  attractions,  a  part 
of  our  garden,   lying   far  in   the   rear,   is 
given  over  to  an  Italian  master  who  knows 
20 


^^  Mtnter  Garden 

all  the  secrets  of  vegetable-growing.  With 
a  short-handled  hoe  he  goes  about,  digging 
industriously  around  the  roots  of  things, 
his  back  arched  like  a  furious  cat's,  his  nose 
almost  touching  the  ground.  It  is  he  who 
brings  in  the  great  heads  of  cauliflower, 
the  young  red  radishes,  the  silver-tipped 
onion-shoots,  the  spinach,  the  crisp  lettuce, 
the  bur-artichokes,  and  the  strawberries. 
Everything,  indeed,  which  can  be  coaxed 
or  forced  to  grow  into  edible  bulb,  leaf, 
stalk,  flower,  or  fruit  he  wrestles  with. 
All  sorts  of  phosphates,  cotton-seed 
meal,  bone-dust,  leaf-mold,  and  swamp- 
muck  are  lavished  to  fertilize  the  sand 
withal.  He  feeds  his  plants  as  if  they 
were  his  children,  talking  to  them  in  a  queer 
monotone  while  pruning,  weeding,  and 
watering  them.  It  is  from  his  area  of 
cultivation  that  comes  all  this  pungency 
which  now  and  again  loads  the  air.  A 
whiff  of  garlic  even  strays  into  the  flower- 
plats,  and  makes  an  inartistic  foil  for  the 
perfume  of  rose  and  the  aroma  of  acacia. 
Our  neighbors,  scattered  hither  and  yon 
in  the  vast  pine  wood,  come  and  go  along 
21 


/IDp  mtnter  (Barren 

the  white  sand-paths  leading  from  house 
to  house  amid  well-kept  pear-orchards  and 
dusky  fig-clumps.  They  nearly  all  have 
the  Latin  volatihty  we  expect  in  Creoles, 
singing  on  their  way,  not  unfrequently 
with  a  joyous  timbre  and  a  bird-like  care- 
lessness in  their  voices.  The  young  girls 
are  sweet,  after  a  fashion,  and  the  youths 
have  a  certain  debonair  cast  of  face  and  a 
Hghtness  of  bearing  which  somehow  can- 
not be  quite  reconciled  with  the  main 
features  of  their  decidedly  limited  lives. 
A  few,  better  to  do  than  the  rest,  are 
educated,  have  been  to  Paris  for  some 
years  of  school  and  gaiety ;  but  even  they 
bear  about  them  a  something  like  a 
drapery  of  the  long  ago — their  personal 
atmosphere  attending  them  always,  giving 
a  very  romantic  effect  of  hazy  distance  and 
dim  perspective. 

In  looking  over  our  garden  paling  at 
the  little  world  abutting  us,  we  witness 
many  things  which  impress  our  lives  with 
memorable  light  sketches.  These  deli- 
cious people — the  phrase  comes  nearest 
the     true      description — these      delicious 

22 


/ID^  Minter  (Barren 

people  are  not  only  lovable,  but  they  love. 
Nowhere  else,  probably,  does  the  thought 
of  marriage  so  insistently  betray  itself  in 
man  and  maid ;  wherefore  we  naturally 
take  a  silent  part  in  many  a  pretty  little 
romance.  Love-passages  so  simple  and 
sincere  that  they  scarcely  seem  a  part  of 
real  life,  iridescent  bubbles  of  frank  passion 
we  might  call  them,  shining  a  moment  in 
this  Southern  sunlight,  then  bursting  to 
nothingness  with  a  twitter  of  girlish 
laughter  and  the  half-sullen  yet  always 
flippant  jocundity  of  a  baffled  boy,  are 
frequent  as  the  billing  of  birds.  But 
coquetry  finally  yields  to  such  seriousness 
as  matrimony  demands,  and  the  bell  of  our 
village  church  is  kept  busy  ringing  for 
weddings.  Nor  does  this  lavish  marrying, 
with  its  swift  and  generous  result  in  pro- 
geny, bring  appreciable  hardships  to  the 
daring  twain,  who  usually  have  but  their 
love  and  two  pairs  of  somewhat  indolent 
hands  for  means  of  livelihood.  Nature 
takes  care  of  her  own  in  the  low  country, 
where  life  can  flaunt  a  gorgeous  banner  of 
luxury  on  no  capital  beyond  a  mullet-net,  a 
23 


^^  mmter  aar^en 

potato-patch,  and  some  pigs  in  a  pen.  We 
have  a  neighbor  who  congratulates  him- 
self as  a  man  of  substance,  having  a  wife 
and  eleven  children,  the  eldest  not  yet 
eighteen.  His  estate  consists  of  a  little 
sandy  plat  of  ten  acres,  with  a  cabin  in  the 
middle.  He  has  six  large  pecan-trees, 
three  fig-trees,  a  scuppernong- vine,  a  dozen 
pear-trees,  an  acre  of  cabbages,  potatoes, 
and  carrots,  a  horse,  two  cows,  and  six 
pigs.  Ah,  but  he  rubs  his  hands  together  to 
relieve  his  oppressive  sense  of  prosperity ! 
After  a  few  spiteful  flurries,  winter  in 
our  low  country  lays  aside  all  make-be- 
lieve of  frost  and  bleakness.  The  weather- 
god  puffs  his  sunburnt  jowls  and  blows  a 
flute  of  spring.  All  around  in  haw  and 
yaupon  the  mocking-birds  begin  to  show 
signs  of  vernal  lustiness.  Here  and  there 
one  tries  a  bar  of  his  love-tune,  which 
sounds  as  if  the  notes,  although  as  liquid 
as  water,  clogged  his  syrinx.  A  sparkling 
twitter  soon  follows,  however,  and  then 
the  rapture  of  May  fills  the  February 
hedges  and  orchards.  Thrush  and  blue- 
bird join  in,  a  vireo  wanders  by,  the  voices 
24 


/IDi?  Mtntet  Garden 

of  jay  and  woodpecker  take  on  a  soft  and 
tender  shade  of  meaning,  the  delicate  in- 
nuendo of  resurgent  love  suiting  absolutely 
the  mood  apparent  in  sky,  sea,  boscage,  and 
air.  To-morrow  we  may  hear  the  drop- 
ping-song,  that  wonderful  ecstasy  of  the 
mocking-bird's  love. 

In  this  land  of  leisure  there  is  no  hurry- 
ing through  the  season  of  nest-building 
and  melody.  The  birds  devote  two  or 
three  weeks  to  sketching  in  the  careless 
foundation  of  twigs  upon  which  will  some 
time  rest  the  cleverly  woven  cup  of  avian 
domestic  bliss;  meantime  they  wander, 
the  cock  singing  passionately,  the  demure 
little  hen  coquetting  with  every  ball  of 
animated  feathers  in  sight.  It  all  comes 
to  a  brisk  and  harmless  fight  between 
jealous  males  here  and  there.  The  war- 
cries  ring  fiercely  at  intervals,  and  out  of 
prickly  thickets  rush  the  combatants, 
clashing  their  wings  together,  and  mayhap 
losing  a  bright  feather  or  two.  One  would 
think  they  had  just  returned  from  a  peace 
congress,  were  their  battles  a  trifle  more 
viciously  stubborn. 

25 


/ID^  Mlnter  (Barren 

Spring  extends  from  the  middle  of  Jan- 
uary to  an  Indefinite  point,  which  sometimes 
touches  June.  Day  after  day  the  tem- 
perature Is  monotonously  even  ;  night  after 
night  a  wonderful  sky,  profoundly  deep 
between  Its  stars,  loops  a  dusky  blend  of 
Milky  Way  and  empyrean  over  the  warm 
sea  and  wavering  Islands.  All  of  the 
most  interesting  plants,  shrubs,  vines, 
trees  in  our  Garden  now  rise  to  the  high- 
est achievement  and  spread  abroad  such 
bewildering  splendors  of  leaf,  spike,  bud, 
flower,  and  painted  stalk  as  only  the 
favored  spots  of  earth  ever  yield.  Rich 
colors  seem  to  imbue  every  natural  object, 
vegetable  and  animal ;  even  the  snakes  in 
the  grass,  basking  or  gliding,  betray  their 
kinship  with  the  birds  by  a  fine  glow  on 
their  variegated  scales.  Doubtless  the 
master  serpent  himself,  who  tempted  the 
mistress  of  Eden,  is  lurking  somewhere  in 
my  domain,  a  gorgeously  pied  skin  of 
fire-opals  mailing  his  back,  and  a  dazing 
fascination  in  his  eyes.  But  let  him  shine  ; 
I  am  not  an  ophiologlst. 

With  spring  arrive  the  crab,  the  floun- 
26 


/ID^  mtnter  (Barren 

der,  and  the  pompano,  a  trio  of  luscious 
significance.  Perhaps  the  allusion  just 
made  to  Satan  in  his  first  form  has  led 
directly  to  deviled  crab ;  but  the  soft- 
shelled  little  backsliders,  the  earliest 
caught,  we  do  not  devil ;  they  are  fried 
brown,  while  the  fish  are  broiled  and  but- 
tered to  nestle  in  a  greenery  of  cress — a 
bouquet  more  influential  with  a  hungry 
man  than  a  queen's  vase  of  roses!  Still, 
we  never  desert  the  banner  of  Flora  in  a 
garden  land.  Not  only  roses,  but  pots 
foaming  high  with  magnificent  wild  vio- 
lets, from  a  distant  glade,  sweeten  the 
morning's  board,  and  reflect  soft  hues  upon 
the  plates  round  about.  Indeed,  violet- 
hunting  is  one  of  our  recreations.  It  goes 
along  with  bird-study  and  sylvan  archery, 
a  sort  of  decorative  interlude  flashing  blue 
as  the  sky  between  science  and  sport. 
Certain  spaces  in  the  pine  forest,  open  to 
the  sun,  are  fairly  painted  with  these  large 
odorless  violets,  the  stems  of  which  are 
sometimes  almost  a  foot  tall.  We  gather 
lupines,  too  ;  and  in  a  few  marshy  plots  the 
glorious  flowers  of  iris  and  pitcher-plant 
27 


/ID^  Mlnter  (BarDen 

gleam  in  scattered  array,  the  latter  showing 
both  a  yellow  and  a  purple  species.  Along 
the  swales,  where  little  half-hidden  streams 
trickle  darkling  among  the  roots  of  magno- 
lia and  sweet-gum,  we  find  gay  fringes 
of  azalea,  with  dogwood-trees  spreading 
above  them  wide  sprays  of  bloom  as  white 
as  snow. 

But  all  play  and  no  work  would  be  too 
great  a  stress  of  luxury,  even  in  the  low 
country.  I  have  found  hterary  labor  far 
more  easy  and  satisfactory  here  than  in  a 
higher  latitude.  By  shifting  my  home 
so  as  to  be  throughout  the  year  virtually 
within  the  periphery  of  summer,  I  am 
able  to  have,  almost  every  day,  my  full 
measure  of  outdoor  exercise  and  free  ac- 
cess to  the  solitude  of  wild  nature.  To 
the  sedentary  craftsman  this  means  a  great 
deal,  in  both  recreation  of  mind  and  re- 
freshment of  body.  What  is  food  for  one 
may  be  poison  for  another;  but  there  is  a 
general  rule,  a  law  of  biology,  which  can- 
not be  dodged  by  any  of  us — the  law 
known  to  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  the 
beasts  of  the  field;  namely,  that  life  de- 
28 


/ID^  Mtntet  OarOen 

pends  upon  waste  and  renewal.  He  who 
labors  with  the  brain  wastes  vitality  with- 
out stint;  he  sows  with  the  sack;  and  he 
must  renew  his  fund  of  energy  just  as 
generously  and  frequently  as  he  gives  it 
out.  This  he  cannot  do  in  a  boreal  cli- 
mate. Bitter  cold  weather  is  mightily 
stimulating  to  him  who  habitually  lives  out 
in  it;  but  the  desk-man,  the  sedentary 
artist,  must  work  in  a  warm  air.  During 
our  Northern  winter  our  libraries  and  stu- 
dios are  necessarily  superheated  ;  therefore, 
when  we  go  forth  from  their  atmosphere 
directly  into  air  forty  degrees  below  freez- 
ing temperature,  the  change  is  too  sudden 
and  extreme  for  recreational  effect.  Nor 
can  any  degree  of  precaution  reduce  the 
risk  to  the  line  of  safety.  Nature  has  not 
built  us  for  such  violent  strains  upon  our 
most  delicate  organs — the  eyes,  ears,  nose, 
throat,  bronchial  tubes,  and  lungs.  Not 
only  does  the  atrocious  cold  immediately 
affect  these  organs  when  suddenly  ap- 
plied to  them  while  they  are  attempered 
to  suit  a  furnace-heated  atmosphere,  but 
it  paralyzes  every  pore  of  the  skin,  and 
29 


/ID^  Mlnter  6ar^en 

thrusts  back  into  the  blood  a  load  of  waste 
tissue. 

In  my  Winter  Garden  we  have  no  such 
plunges  from  heat  to  cold.  During  the 
chillest  weather  I  write  by  an  open  fire, 
and  when  I  fling  aside  the  pen  for  the  bow 
or  the  fishing-rod,  the  change  from  the 
atmosphere  of  the  study  to  the  open  air  is 
but  a  sweetly  tonic  experience,  which  goes 
through  my  brain  Hke  a  gust  of  song.  No 
swaddling  in  furs,  no  gasping,  no  icy  in- 
halations, no  numbing  feet  or  fleece- gloved 
hands;  we  hold  our  shoulders  back  and 
breathe  as  if  the  draught  were  something  to 
make  one  greedy  beyond  reserve. 

Doubtless  the  Southern  summer  added 
to  the  Southern  winter  would  enervate  us ; 
but  the  birds  found  out  eons  ago  that  a 
swinging  life,  alternating  summer  in  a  high 
latitude  with  winter  in  the  warm  South, 
afforded  just  the  climatic  influences  neces- 
sary to  perfect  health.  I  have  studied 
wild  birds  with  persistence  and  with  every 
facility  at  hand,  in  all  seasons  and  under 
all  conditions,  between  Canada  and  the 
islands  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico ;  but  I  never 
30 


/ro^  Mtnter  (Barren 

yet  knew  of  one  that  died  of  old  age,  never 
killed  one  that,  when  dissected,  appeared 
in  the  least  affected  with  senile  decay.  I 
do  not  say  that  birds  never  die  of  old  age 
— domesticated  birds  certainly  do ;  and  it 
may  be  all  right  for  men  of  science  to 
make  eyes  at  me  when  I  do  roundly  deny 
the  existence  of  any  evidence,  worth  seri- 
ous attention,  tending  to  prove  that  wild 
birds,  in  their  natural  habitat,  with  plenty 
of  their  natural  food  to  eat,  ever  die,  save 
when  stricken  by  disease  or  accident. 

Breaking  away  from  a  fascinating  ques- 
tion hke  this  of  bird  immortality — a  ques- 
tion to  which  I  am  bound  sometime  to 
return  with  plenty  of  facts  to  uphold  my 
theory — reminds  me  that  the  time  for 
northward  migration  is  at  hand.  This 
morning  there  was  a  redoubled  clamor  of 
voices  circulating  through  the  garden  tree- 
tops,  and  a  fresh  rustle  of  wings  round 
about,  I  awoke  with  a  longing  softly  astir 
in  my  blood,  while  in  my  nostrils  the  far-off 
spring  fragrance  of  the  Wabash  country 
and  of  the  banks  of  Rock  River  made  me 
understand  that  winter  was  no  more.  A 
31 


m^  Mtnter  (Barren 

tide  of  migrating  birds  had  overlapped  my 
garden  at  sunrise,  and  was  flowing  on, 
tumultuously  vocal,  toward  the  land  of 
blue-grass,  vast  fertile  farms,  and  blooming 
apple-orchards. 

At  breakfast  some  one  of  the  circle  hints 
a  desire  to  feel  a  brisk  waft  of  Hoosier  air 
off  the  Wea  plains,  and  I  venture  a  remark 
or  two  upon  the  fine  spring  weather  re- 
ported from  the  Indianapolis  station.  As 
if  through  leagues  upon  leagues  of  golden 
haze,  I  see  the  hyacinths  purpling  a  slope 
at  Sherwood  Place.  Like  the  mere  trickle 
of  water  which  pierces  a  Mississippi  levee, 
our  desultory  mouthing  grows  firmer  and 
stronger  all  in  one  direction,  until  presently 
it  fairly  roars,  sweeping  away  every  rem- 
nant of  a  barrier;  and  before  we  compre- 
hend fully  what  possesses  us,  lo!  we  are 
packing  our  bags  and  trunks,  actually 
trembling  meantime,  and  breathless  with 
delight  at  thought  of  flying  northward. 
An  intoxicating  sense  of  moving  apace 
with  one  of  the  ancient  universal  Impulses 
fills  us  during  our  passage  over  mountain 
and  valley ;  for  by  day  we  see  the  song- 
32 


/ID^  Mtntet  GarC)en 

birds  on  either  side  of  us,  and  at  night, 
high  above  us,  the  wild  geese  honk  assur- 
ingly,  heading  for  the  Tippecanoe  and  the 
Kankakee.  In  Alabama  we  see  the  foot- 
hills of  Sand  Mountain  blotched  pink  and 
blue  with  flowers  not  known  to  the  low- 
landers.  Farmers  are  planting  corn  in 
Tennessee.  We  rush  across  Kentucky  by 
night,  and  when  the  sunshine  again  falls 
into  our  swaying  berth  we  look  out  upon 
apple-orchards  fair  with  bloom  reeling 
past  us  as  if  hurrying  into  the  vast  dream- 
country  from  which  we  are  so  joyously 
taking  our  farewell  flight.  And  far  be- 
hind us  we  hear  a  soft,  melodious  stroke, 
the  gate  of  my  Winter  Garden  closing  to 
shut  in  our  abandoned  dreams. 


33 


parabiBC  Circle 

FROM  the  Winter  Garden  going  west- 
ward, after  a  brisk  walk  of  nearly  an 
hour  you  come  by  way  of  a  dim  trail  into 
a  little  glade  where  tall  wood-sedge  grows 
in  scattered  wisps.  The  space  is  sur- 
rounded by  an  irregular  hedge  of  wild 
yaupon-bushes,  dogwood-clumps,  fringe- 
trees,  and  pines,  save  where  a  slow  and 
slight  runnel  passes  tangent  to  the  periph- 
ery, adding  the  dense  green  plants  and  trees 
of  its  miry  bank.  Three  bow-shots  distant 
from  this  spot,  still  westward,  a  marsh 
begins,  covered  with  low  rushes  and  tufts 
of  coarse  grass,  stretching  away  for  miles, 
a  plain  visibly  broken  only  by  the  strag- 
gling live-oaks  and  water-oaks  marking  the 
line  of  a  considerable  bayou.  I  have  named 
the  glade  Paradise  Circle,  on  no  partic- 
34 


IparaMse  Circle 

ular  principle.  It  is  a  bird-theater,  where 
comedies,  tragedies,  farces,  and  "  varieties  " 
are  mixed  together  with  song  attended  by 
discordant  bickerings.  I  usually  reach 
it  early  in  the  morning,  of  spring  days, 
dallying  there  awhile  before  passing  forth 
upon  the  marsh  for  a  shooting-bout  with 
myself. 

I  wonder,  and  yet  do  not  so  greatly  care, 
what  the  sportsman  with  the  gun  thinks 
of  me  and  my  method  of  sport.  Like  all 
isolated  men,  I  am  a  trifle  self-conscious. 
My  bow  and  my  book  further  enforce  the 
influence  of  radical  departure  from  the 
prevaihng — I  might  say  the  universal — 
modern  way  of  manly  recreation  by  field 
and  flood.  But  what  of  it?  Why  should 
not  I  get  my  physical  exercise  and  mental 
refreshment  as  well  with  my  bow  and  my 
book  as  yonder  gentleman  with  his  gun 
and  his  dog?  Perhaps  the  very  fact  that 
I  offer  to  myself  this  question  presupposes 
that  I  am  somewhat  uneasy  about  my 
standing.  Granted.  The  bird  is  uneasy 
on  the  bough ;  the  hare  feels  an  endless 
insecurity;  all  wild  things  start  and  flit, 
35 


paraMse  Circle 

keep  up  a  strange  watchfulness;  they 
know,  somehow,  that  the  decision  is 
against  them. 

When  I  lean  my  unstrung  bow  against  a 
blooming  wild  haw-bush,  hang  my  quiver 
beside  it,  and  seat  myself  to  read,  there  is  a 
composite  impression  of  aloofness,  wide 
separation  from  mankind,  and  remoteness 
from  things  modern  and  conventional.  Yet 
I  am  disturbed  not  unpleasantly,  still  pro- 
foundly and,  strangely,  by  a  sense  of  help- 
lessness and  danger,  which,  when  analyzed, 
turns  out  to  be  a  remote  consciousness  that 
this  life  I  so  enjoy  is  really  the  forbidden 
life,  the  life  long  since  abolished.  I  am 
dreaming,  and  I  fear  the  awakening — I  am 
playing,  and  I  dread  the  call  to  work! 

A  tenuous  delight  spreads  wine-like  in 
one's  veins  at  the  first  genuine  touch  of 
solitude ;  and  let  me  tell  you  that  a  bow 
has  a  virtue  in  it  which  you  feel  slip  along 
your  nerves  to  stir  your  imagination,  espe- 
cially when  the  bow  is  a  fine  old  yew, 
richly  colored  in  grain  and  fiber  by  long 
use,  and  stands  so  near  you  that  your 
elbow  may  fondle  it  while  you  read  Chau- 

36 


IparaMse  Circle 

cer  and  hear  the  thrushes  and  mocking- 
birds song-roUicking  far  and  near.  Indeed, 
the  bow  is,  to  a  wild,  bird-haunted  spot 
Hke  Paradise  Circle,  what  sugar  is  to  a 
mint-julep — a  thing  to  qualify  and  at  the 
same  time  authenticate  essential  original- 
ities. Man  made  one  ingredient  of  julep, 
nature  brewed  the  other  in  the  stems  and 
leaves  of  mint;  sugar  does  the  rest.  My 
bow  connects  bird-song  with  Chaucer- 
song.  I  read  Chaucer  and  hear  the  wild 
twittering  in  bush  and  brake,  while  the 
presence  of  the  old  yew  and  its  quiver  of 
shafts  somehow  sweetens  and  deliciously 
tempers  both,  blending  them  to  suit  my 
very  deepest  taste. 

You  smile  doubtingly,  as  many  a  good 
and  true  skeptic  has  done  before  you ;  but 
pray  be  practical  and  try  it.  Get  you  a 
fairly  good  six-foot  bow  and  a  quiver  of 
arrows ;  be  ashamed  of  them  in  all  frank- 
ness ;  feel  like  a  great,  unmanly  fool  while 
sneaking  away  to  the  woods  with  them  ;  but 
go  on,  and  be  unspeakably  relieved  when 
once  you  are  in  the  solitude  of  nature, 
hidden  from  men  by  green  thickets  and 
37 


IParaMse  Circle 

unfrequented  groves.  Now  handle  your 
tackle  a  little,  looking  all  around  you,  as  a 
wild  turkey  habitually  does,  to  see  if  by 
any  possible  ill  luck  a  human  eye  is  with- 
in range.  It  is  a  crucial  moment  for  you. 
If  a  man  should  step  from  behind  a  tree 
near  by,  you  would  drop  your  bow  and 
run  like  a  hare,  recklessly  heeling  and  toe- 
ing your  way  through  copse  and  tangle, 
across  brook  and  over  fell,  never  stopping 
while  breath  and  nerve  lasted.  In  a  little 
space  of  time,  however,  if  nothing  break 
the  charm  of  solitude,  you  will  begin  to 
realize  a  fascination  that  never  yet  has 
failed,  and  presently  the  bow  will  have 
you  completely  at  its  mercy.  Practise 
with  it  a  few  minutes  every  day  for  a 
week,  and  your  fate  will  be  sealed ;  never 
again  can  you  quite  escape  from  the 
purple  mist,  the  romantic  allurement,  the 
picturesque  hallucination  of  archery.  Fly- 
fishing, cricket,  fencing,  skating,  polo,  and 
golf  all  condensed  into  one  cannot  compare 
with  it. 

But  the  proof  is  not  in  words.     What 
one  says  must  have  under  it  the  lift  of 

38 


IParaDtse  Circle 

something  done.  A  limpkin  crying  in  the 
rushes  called  me  away  from  Chaucer;  for 
it  had  been  down  in  my  book  of  memo- 
randa all  winter  that  a  limpkin  I  must  have 
to  complete  a  study,  yet  so  far  the  bird 
had  eluded  me.  To  loop  my  quiver  on 
my  belt,  brace  my  bow,  and  set  off  across 
the  marsh  was  a  trick  in  three  motions, 
done  with  the  ease  and  certainty  of  ab- 
solute habit.  Self-consciousness  departs 
when  unhindered  enthusiasm  arrives.  I 
could  not  see  the  bird,  but  my  imagination 
pierced  the  rushes  and  made  out  every 
detail  of  form  and  feather.  Expectation 
braced  all  my  bow-shooting  muscles  and 
nerves.  It  is  invariably  a  fresh  delight  to 
the  sylvan  archer  when  an  opportunity  for 
a  shot  seems  about  to  come. 

When  I  broke  through  the  rim  of  Para- 
dise Circle  to  enter  the  marsh  a  woodcock 
flew  up  at  my  toes  and  sped  sharply 
around  a  thorny  bush — too  sharply,  indeed, 
for  it  was  caught  in  an  extended  spray  of 
spikes  and  held  there  fluttering  a  moment; 
then  it  dropped  almost  straight  to  the 
ground,  where  it  ran  a  little  way  and  hid 
39 


IparaMse  Circle 

under  the  grass  and  leaves.  At  the  same 
moment  out  of  the  corner  of  an  eye  I  saw 
five  plover  drop  lightly  upon  a  patch  of 
green  marsh,  where  the  grass  had  lately 
been  burnt  off  and  renewed.  Embarrass- 
ment of  riches !  Not  often  does  the  archer 
thus  find  his  fortunes  clashing  so  merrily 
one  against  another.  And  the  limpkin 
continued  to  cry  at  intervals  right  in  the 
center  of  a  mere  patch— scarcely  more  than 
an  armful— of  rushes  not  sixty  yards  away. 
From  where  I  was  the  plover  could  be 
reached  by  a  long  shot,  and  the  whole  wisp 
was  huddled  within  a  circle  three  feet 
across ;  but  the  woodcock  lay  under  light 
cover  at  half  the  distance. 

Chaucer's  heady  wine  may  have  over- 
stimulated  my  mind  ;  at  all  events,  a  greedy 
desire  to  bag  every  bird — woodcock, 
plover,  limpkin — mastered  me,  and  the 
plan  of  campaign  was  instantaneously 
formed.  First  come,  first  served.  The 
woodcock  had  the  floor ;  I  would  give  him 
honorable  notice,  to  begin  with,  for  which 
I  selected  a  heavy,  blunt,  broad-feathered 
arrow  suited  to  short  range ;  then  I  crept 
40 


paraDtse  Circle 

like  a  cat  toward  my  quarry,  bending  my 
gaze  hard  upon  the  spot  where  I  had  seen 
it  hide.  You  must  bear  in  mind  that 
the  sylvan  archer  is  forced  to  depend  upon 
keenness  of  vision,  stealth,  knowledge  of 
bird-habits,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  to 
an  extent  rarely  thought  of  by  the  sports- 
man with  a  gun.  I  have  killed  many  birds 
on  the  wing,  birds  both  large  and  small, 
slow-fliers  and  air-splitters,  with  my  arch- 
ery tackle  ;  but  of  course  there  is  Httle  cer- 
tainty in  such  shooting.  Moreover,  the  long 
flight  of  an  arrow  delivered  at  a  consider- 
able elevation  is  an  item  to  consider;  too 
often  it  means  loss  of  the  missile.  Long 
ago  I  used  to  practise  on  meadow-larks  in 
our  Western  clover-fields,  and  I  considered 
myself  expert  when  I  could  count  upon 
one  bird  in  fifteen  shots!  Of  course,  I  re- 
formed presently,  and  left  the  beautiful 
starlings  to  their  singing  all  unmolested. 

But  now  the  woodcock,  which  to  dis- 
cover in  its  hiding-place,  and  have  a  shot 
at  while  it  crouched  on  the  ground,  would 
be  a  feat  far  superior  to  flushing  it  and 
shooting  it  on  the  wing  with  a  shot-gun. 
41 


Iparabtse  Circle 

Give  the  bird  a  chance,  say  the  gun- 
bearers.  Well,  the  archer  gives  it  ten 
chances  at  the  very  least.  In  the  first 
place,  there  is  the  well-nigh  impossible 
task  of  seeing  a  quail,  a  woodcock,  a  snipe, 
or  any  other  hiding  bird  before  it  rises, 
while  it  is  usually  quite  easy  to  make  it 
fly  up  so  that  an  ounce  or  more  of  shot 
may  be  whirled  at  it.  Then,  after  the 
archer  has  cleverly  spied  out  his  game, 
almost  undistinguishable  amid  the  grass 
and  leaves,  what  a  thin  chance  he  has  to 
bag  it! 

In  the  present  case  I  did  not  succeed, 
so  far  as  discovery  went.  A  long  and  pa- 
tient scrutiny  of  the  spot  where  the  wood- 
cock lay  hiding  gave  not  a  glimpse  of 
feather  or  beak;  and  when  at  last  my 
foot  slipped  in  the  slightest  way,  crushing 
a  dry  weed  with  a  snap,  up  sprang  the 
shining  brown  bird,  squeaking  keenly,  its 
strong  wings  purring  Hke  silk  banners 
blown  by  a  fresh  wind.  What  followed 
was  a  rare  accident  or  a  marvelous  shot. 
I  prefer  the  latter  solution.  Nor  was  I 
without  a  witness  to  my  skill.  At  fifteen 
42 


IParablse  Circle 

paces,  just  as  the  woodcock  turned  in  air, 
perhaps  twelve  feet  above  ground,  I 
stopped  him  with  my  heavy  arrow,  a  cen- 
ter hit,  bringing  him  down  in  such  style 
that  a  great  self-satisfaction  went  over  me 
like  a  wave.  A  thing  like  that  is  not  fre- 
quently done,  even  by  the  best  archer,  and 
in  my  exceeding  deep  dehght  I  did  not 
hear  the  horseman  come  from  under  the 
hedge  of  Paradise  Circle.  When  he  spoke 
I  turned  about  startled,  doubtless  glaring. 

"  Ouf,  zah !  varee  good  you  chutes  zat 
vay,  zah." 

He  reined  in  his  Creole  pony,  lifted  his 
hat,  and  bowed.  I  saw  in  his  thin,  clear- 
cut  face  a  frank  expression  of  mingled 
wonder  and  vast  regard.  Across  the  horn 
of  his  saddle  slanted  an  elegantly  modeled 
and  finished  hammerless  double-barrel.  I 
returned  his  salute,  and  went  to  retrieve 
my  bird. 

**  Admirable,  zah,  admirable  !  "  he  called 
after  me,  giving  a  purely  French  pronun- 
ciation and  accent  to  the  adjective. 

Very  likely  he  was  not  pleased  when, 
after  I  had  laid  hands  on  my  game  and 
43 


IParaDtse  Circle 

the  arrow  that  had  behaved  so  famously, 
I  walked  away  without  looking  back. 
Your  archer,  a  lonely  and  selfish  churl, 
makes  no  acquaintances  in  the  field  or  the 
wood.  He  has  learned  his  lesson,  one 
important  chapter  of  which  teaches  that 
any  man  or  any  boy  of  whatever  breed  will 
follow  the  bow  and  worry  the  bowman 
with  breathless  remarks  and  difficult  ques- 
tions. Many  a  time  have  I  had  at  my 
heels,  upon  setting  out  for  the  woods  from 
a  village,  a  mob  of  curious,  nay,  fascinated 
louts,  of  all  sizes  and  habiliments ;  nor 
would  they  accept  mere  coldness  or  lofty 
inattention  as  sufficient  rebufT  to  turn  them 
back.  Even  a  decided  scowl  only  checked 
them  and  kept  them  at  a  certain  distance, 
from  which  they  cast  upon  me  longing 
glances  and  prophetic  remarks. 

*'  Bet  ye  he  's  half  Injen,"  said  one  lop- 
hatted  lad  that  I  remember  very  well,  *'  an' 
I  'spec'  he  kin  hit  a  rabbit  every  time." 

*'  Don't  yer  b'lieve  it,"  spoke  up  another. 
"  He  's  not  airy  Injen;  he  's  er  wil'  man 
got  away  f'om  er  show!  " 

A  very  sensitive  person  winces  under 
44 


IParaMse  Circle 

such  criticism.  Indeed,  a  frequent  recur- 
rence of  it  leads  to  desperation.  Lately  I 
have  adopted  the  ruse  of  carrying  my  bow 
and  quiver  each  in  a  thin  rubber  bag  when 
I  go  forth  for  a  tramp.  This  generally 
enables  me  to  avoid  exciting  people  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  politeness.  Still  some 
of  them  scent  a  mystery  through  the  bags, 
and  venture  to  ask  embarrassing  questions. 

I  got  rid  of  my  polite  Creole  cavalier 
very  easily,  I  thought,  and  went  for  a  shot 
at  the  five  plover,  which  were  feeding 
busily  on  the  verdant  plat.  They  began 
to  suspect  me,  so  that  I  had  to  risk  a  shaft 
over  a  long  range  with  a  cross  wind.  Of 
course  I  missed. 

'*  Nevah  heet  eem,  zah;  but  he  haf  to 
be  gittin'  roun'  f'om  zat — zat — zat  Jleche 
w'at  'oo  chute  at  eem!  " 

I  turned  quickly,  and  there  he  was,  pony 
and  all,  fifteen  feet  to  the  rear,  smiling 
with  gentle  approval  upon  my  good  yew 
bow.  It  is  unnecessary  to  record  that  I 
did  not  fare  better  with  the  rare  limpkin 
when  its  turn  came.  The  horseman  fol- 
lowed at  my  heels,  sweetly  remarking  upon 
45 


IparaMse  Circle 

my  taste  in  preferring  savage  weapons  to 
the  far  more  effective  engine  of  contem- 
porary civilization  resting  idle  on  his  sad- 
dle-horn.     I   tried  a   wing-shot   in   sheer 
bravado  when  my  bird,  frightened  by  the 
splashing  of  the  horse's  feet  in  a  puddle, 
rose  with  a  great  show  of  mottled  pinions ; 
but  my  shaft  went  absurdly  wide  of  the 
mark.    Then  the  Creole  laughed  ironically, 
and  galloped  away,  flinging  back  over  his 
sloping  shoulder  a  patois  phrase  that  meant 
in  EngHsh,  "  Such  tomfoolery  for  a  grown 
man ! "     And  yet  that  same  cavalier  would 
have  thought  it  not  in  the  least  tomfoolery 
to  play  poker  all  night  long  and  find  him- 
self seven  dollars  and  forty  cents  loser  at 
sunrise.     It  is  all  owing  to  the  slant  of  a 
man's   vision   as   to   what    he    recognizes, 
when   in   a   critical    mood,    as   worthy   of 
manly  attention. 

I  breathed  freely  once  more  when  the 
debonair  little  Creole  passed  out  of  sight, 
riding  through  the  wood  beyond  Paradise 
Circle,  leaving  me  alone  knee-deep  in  the 
stiff  marsh-grass.  A  rail  clucking  under 
a  broad  drift  of  fallen  rushes  at  the  middle 
46 


IParaMse  Circle 

of  a  place  too  boggy  for  my  weight  gave  me 
some  trouble  before  I  would  acknowledge 
its  inaccessibility.  I  had  lost  an  arrow  by 
shooting  at  the  limpkin,  and  as  but  four 
remained  in  my  quiver,  I  did  not  purpose 
to  risk  another  foolishly  or  carelessly.  The 
rail  seemed  to  understand  my  predicament. 
It  walked  boldly  forth  from  cover  and 
shook  its  short  tail  at  me,  as  if  to  suggest 
what  a  fine  target  I  was  deprived  of  by 
circumstances  over  which  I  had  no  control ; 
nor  did  it  skulk,  after  its  usual  fashion,  or 
fly,  when  I  tried  to  drive  it  out  of  its 
queachy  territory;  but  there  it  stood,  dod- 
dling  its  head,  one  foot  gripping  a  stiff 
straw  of  water-grass,  the  other  spread  upon 
a  spatter-dock  leaf. 

Of  course,  it  was  a  small  matter,  at  which 
one  may  look  back  indifferently ;  but  just 
then  it  seemed  to  me  the  most  vexatious 
thing  imaginable  that  a  rail,  sleek,  sheeny, 
fat,  should  stand  before  me,  not  twenty 
yards  distant,  and  fairly  nag  at  my  bow, 
while  I  capered  impotently  around  the 
margin  of  that  bottomless  loblolly!  A 
sharp,  rattling  cry,  not  in  the  least  timidly 
47 


paraMse  Circle 

uttered,  seemed  to  pry  the  bird's  stout 
beak  open  and  shake  every  feather  on  its 
back.  This  was  repeated  at  irregular  in- 
tervals. Meantime  my  desire  to  shoot 
increased,  in  some  sort  of  uncontrollable 
ratio,  until  it  became  an  ecstatic  frenzy. 
I  had  an  arrow  across  my  bow  and  nocked 
on  the  string.  I  took  aim  at  half-draw, 
but  withheld  the  shot.  I  knew  that  I 
could  hit  the  saucy  and  atrociously  daring 
thing;  but  I  could  not  afford  to  lose  an 
arrow;  and  besides,  what  good  would  the 
rail  do  me  if  I  did  kill  it?  There  it  would 
be  in  the  middle  of  the  mud-pond,  and — 
But  I  could  bear  it  no  longer.  Just  one 
arrow — what  did  I  care  ?  So  I  braced  my- 
self and  drew.  Slowly  the  shaft  slipped 
across  my  bending  bow  until  the  feather 
reached  a  point  below  my  chin,  and  in  a 
line  with  my  right  eye,  while  the  metal 
head  touched  my  left  forefinger-knuckle. 
Then  the  shot.  It  was  beautiful  and 
true — but  not  a  hit;  only  'a  whack  in  the 
mud,  and  a  spattering  of  it  all  around 
where  the  arrow  entered  with  a  dull,  half- 
liquid  chug  about  five  inches  to  the  left  of 

48 


IparaMse  Circle 

the  bird,  which  did  not  fly  or  run,  but 
simply  dodged,  shrank,  and  looked  sur- 
prised. 

That  was  really  no  unusual  thing  for  a 
bird  to  do.  When  a  shaft  passes  near  one 
the  sound  of  the  feather  seems  to  make  it 
rather  afraid  to  move.  Even  a  wild  turkey 
will  sometimes  spread  its  wings  and  squat 
flat  on  the  ground  as  the  whir  of  a  shaft 
passing  close  confuses  and  frightens  it. 
And  now  I  was  beyond  self-control.  Out 
came  another  arrow,  which  was  shot  with 
similar  effect;  then  another,  and  so  on 
until  my  quiver  was  empty.  Yet  there 
stood,  or  rather  crouched,  the  beautiful 
rail,  quite  untouched.  My  missiles  were 
planted  close  to  him  in  an  irregular  ring, 
each  one  buried  almost  to  its  feather  in  the 
mud ;  and  I  stood  helpless,  with  sagging 
jaw,  until  presently,  recovering  my  rage,  I 
yelled  at  the  bird  so  savagely  and  hoarsely 
that  it  sprang  into  the  air  and  flew  away 
in  a  straight  line  across  the  wide  marsh,  its 
wings  working  wildly,  until  it  dropped,  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  distant,  into  another  mud- 
pond. 

4  49 


IparaMse  Circle 

I  unbraced  my  bow,  and  after  one  long- 
ing look  at  the  feather-ends  of  my  arrows 
slanting  out  of  the  bog,  I  turned  me 
toward  Paradise  Circle  again.  Would  you 
believe  me  if  I  should  tell  you  that  I  had 
not  walked  forty  steps  when  up  flew  a 
great  blue  heron  out  of  a  little  tide-ditch 
but  a  few  feet  from  me  ?  So  it  was ;  and  then 
the  birds  of  marsh  and  thicket  and  wood 
began  to  show  themselves  here,  yonder, 
everywhere.  They  whirled  in  air;  they 
stretched  long  necks  out  of  the  grass  and 
rushes ;  they  ran  on  the  verdant  plats ;  they 
uttered  guttural  croaks,  squawked  rasp- 
ingly,  chattered,  twittered,  sang  far  and 
near.  Had  my  quiver  been  full  of  arrows 
I  could  have  shot  to  left,  right,  front,  rear, 
with  choice  of  birds  for  target.  But  I  soon 
lost  every  trace  of  impatience  and  regret ; 
for  your  sylvan  bowman  really  likes  better 
to  revel  among  birds  than  to  shoot  the  rarest 
of  them,  even  for  ornithology's  sake. 

When  I  again  entered  Paradise  Circle 

the  sun  was  going  down  the  western  slope 

of  heaven  into  a  tender  haze  through  which 

its  light  came  slantwise,  touching  the  tree- 

50 


paraMse  Circle 

tops  with  dream-glories,  shimmering  softly 
through  the  haw-blossom  sprays, — a 
haunting  effect,— and  the  mocking-birds 
dashed  their  sparkling  fife-music  over  and 
under  and  through  it  all.  I  sat  down  be- 
neath a  liquid  amber-tree  to  nurse  my  bow 
and  absorb  the  immanent  sweets  of  bloom, 
honey-dew,  bursting  buds,  and  that  wan- 
dering, elusive  something  we  recognize  as 
woodsy  freshness. 

A  greenlet  came  to  eye  me  curiously 
from  a  tuft  of  young  leaves,  while  it  did 
some  gymnastics,  swinging  back-down- 
ward, balancing  its  lithe  body  cleverly  in 
various  poses,  curving  its  neck  around  a 
twig  and  peeping  sharply  under  the  hidden 
parts  of  sprays.  Other  little  insect-hunters 
were  on  high  in  the  greater  trees,  going 
back  and  forth  through  the  foliage  like 
shuttles  from  the  hand  of  an  unsteady 
weaver.  And  then  a  flash  of  vivid  red— it 
was  as  if  a  smith  had  swung  a  bit  of  ruby- 
hot  metal  from  bush  to  bush — introduced 
a  cardinal  grosbeak  in  full  plumage.  I 
started  as  one  does  who  feels  a  shock  of 
sudden  and  unexpected  delight.  Here 
51 


Iparabiee  Circle 

was  a  torch  for  memory,  a  flash  from 
home— that  other  home  in  the  far  North, 
where  soon  the  maples  would  be  in  leaf, 
the  apple-trees  abloom,  and  where  all  the 
woods  and  fields,  fragrant  as  a  thyme-bed, 
would  be  ringing  with  bird-song.  The  car- 
dinal grosbeak  lives  there  the  year  round; 
but  there  are  migrants  who  swing  back 
and  forth  with  the  sun.  Why  do  some 
remain  in  the  frozen  North  while  their 
companions  flit  away  into  the  lands  of 
perpetual  summer?  But  then,  why  does 
the  same  problem  of  migration  constantly 
arise  in  human  history?  Many  of  my 
friends  laugh  at  me  for  shrinking  down  the 
southern  slope  of  the  world  while  they  go 
blithely  about  to  furbish  up  their  sleighs 
and  skates. 

Seeing  the  cardinal  grosbeak  gave  me  a 
nostalgia;  indeed,  it  transported  me,  so  to 
say,  back  to  the  sleety  thickets  of  Indiana, 
where  I  last  saw  this  fine  fellow.  And 
what  a  splendid  bird  he  is!  From  crest 
to  toe-tip  he  shines,  nay,  he  dazzles  one's 
eyes;  and  he  feels  quite  largely  the  impor- 
tance of  his  color.  I  cannot  think  of  him 
52 


IparaMse  Circle 

save  as  an  avian  firebrand,  burning  almost 
fiercely  in  our  Western  winter,  and  singing 
at  a  major  pitch  whenever  a  hint  of  spring 
hovers  in  the  air. 

I  speak  of  the  grosbeak  as  masculine; 
but  the  feminine  is  at  hand,  inconspicuously 
brownish  gray  with  a  faint  wash  of  car- 
dinal. The  pair  do  not,  in  winter,  keep 
close  company  with  each  other;  yet  where 
the  blazing  cock  fidgets  and  flits,  not  very 
far  away  his  honest  hen  peers  and  pecks, 
a  very  industrious  little  body,  proud  of 
her  lord.  Songless  what  time  the  sun  is 
bobbing  along  the  southern  slope  of 
heaven,  the  cardinal  grosbeak  is  yet  not 
voiceless.  Approach  too  near  the  hedge 
or  thicket  in  which  he  flickers  like  the  blaze 
of  a  red  lantern,  and  he  warns  you  with  a 
"Chip,  chip!  "  not  to  trespass,  lifting  his 
pointed  crest  the  while.  Should  you  get 
hold  of  him,  a  thing  about  as  difficult  to  do 
as  reaching  a  star,  he  would  bite  you 
cruelly  with  mandibles  snapping  Hke  the 
jaws  of  a  tiny  steel  trap. 

Of  all  the  resident  Northern  birds,  the 
blue  jay  and  the  cardinal  grosbeak  are 
53 


IparaMse  Circle 

most  brilliantly  beautiful,  the  golden- 
winged  woodpecker  coming  close  up  as 
third  in  the  list.  But  conspicuous  as  the 
grosbeak  is,  a  large  majority  of  casual 
observers  do  not  really  know  him  when 
they  see  him.  A  red  bird  they  bear  in 
mind  in  a  general  way,  not  distinguishing 
the  cardinal  grosbeak  from  the  summer 
tanager,  or,  for  that  matter,  from  any 
other  of  the  red-dashed  Tanagridcs,  to 
which  the  grosbeaks  are  not  at  all  closely 
related.  There  is  a  striking  resemblance 
in  mere  form  between  the  cardinal  and  the 
blue  jay.  Each  has  a  short,  somewhat 
stoutish  body,  a  long  tail,  a  tall  crest,  and 
a  short,  stout  bill.  But  the  cardinal  gros- 
beak shows  a  less  cruel  disposition  toward 
other  feathered  beings,  and  seems  to  be  in 
every  way  a  more  lovable  bird. 

In  making  studies  which  have  extended 
over  a  large  area,  I  have  found  very  little 
change  of  habit  in  this  grosbeak  on  account 
of  differences  of  locality  and  climate. 
There  is  a  slight  variation  in  color  when 
the  bird  is  resident  in  the  far  Southwest, 
the  red  becoming  brighter  and  purer,  with 
54 


IparaMse  Circle 

less  tendency  to  shade  into  gray  or  brown. 
While  our  Northern  variety  has  a  dash  of 
jet-black  in  his  face  surrounding  his  red  bill, 
the  fiery  crest  of  his  California  and  Texas 
brother  sometimes  almost  burns  out  this 
soot,  leaving  but  traces  of  it  on  the  cheeks 
and  under  the  chin.  Everywhere,  however, 
I  see  him  haunting  the  same  sort  of  places  : 
low  underbrush,  hillside  thickets,  vine- 
tangles,  ravines  grown  up  with  bushes — 
a  happy,  courageous  fellow,  always  busy, 
and  in  springtime  exceedingly  noisy  when 
he  mounts  to  the  highest  tip  of  a  tree  and 
whistles  his  far-reaching,  breezy  call,  which 
sounds  like  "Wheecheer!  wheecheer! 
wheecheer!  Wheet!  "  It  is  the  very 
boldest  phrase  heard  in  all  ourwoods,  some- 
times changing  to"  Hoitee !  hoitee !  hoitee ! 
Hoit!  hoit!  hoit!  "  often  repeated. 

Dr.  Coues  and  other  ornithologists  re- 
port the  cardinal  grosbeak  as  a  very  shy 
bird.  I  have  not  been  able  to  confirm 
this.  Pairs  of  these  lovely  birds  haunt 
the  trees  and  shrubbery  of  the  garden 
around  my  Indiana  home,  often  lingering 
near  my  study  windows,  even  playing  in  a 
55 


Iparablse  Circle 

muscadine-vine  which  drapes  the  veranda. 
From  the  shores  of  Okeechobee  and  the 
brakes  of  Louisiana  to  middle  Indiana  I 
have  found  it  common  and  resident,  not 
shyer  than  the  blue  jay  or  the  brown 
thrush,  living  on  fair  terms  with  the  cat-bird 
and  the  towhee  bunting.  In  times  of  deep 
and  long-continued  snow,  I  often  place 
cracked  nuts  and  broken  bread  of  corn- 
meal  on  the  window-sills  of  my  study  in 
order  to  give  the  birds  something  to  live 
on.  Cardinal  grosbeaks,  blue  jays,  two 
or  three  species  of  woodpecker,  and  the 
crested  titmouse  soon  find  the  feast,  and 
are  not  backward  about  accepting  its  com- 
fort. The  grosbeak  eats  voraciously  upon 
such  an  occasion,  apparently  more  pressed 
by  hunger  than  the  other  birds,  and  I 
suspect  that  our  midwinter  is  often  very 
hard  on  him;  but  my  residence  in  the 
South  at  that  season  has  interfered  with 
observation. 

The  rose-breasted  grosbeak  is  not  resi- 
dent, but  when  he  comes  up  from  the  far 
South  in  spring  he  is  like  a  torch  in  our 
woods.      These  splendid  creatures  are  be- 

56 


IParaMse  Circle 

coming  quite  scarce.  A  few  years  ago 
they  were  plentiful  in  many  places.  I 
have  seen  them  migrating  southward  in 
scattering  flocks  during  the  last  days  of 
August  and  the  first  week  of  September. 
The  present  year  I  saw  none.  This  gros- 
beak is  but  a  cousin  of  the  cardinal's ;  and 
the  same  may  be  said  of  the  beautiful  blue 
grosbeak,  now  so  seldom  seen.  But,  get- 
ting back  to  our  resident  redcoat,  the 
cardinal  itself  is  rapidly  disappearing  from 
the  middle  Western  States.  A  few  years 
more  will,  it  is  to  be  feared,  confine  its 
habitat  to  the  wilder  regions  of  the  South. 

The  grosbeak  blazing  so  conspicuously 
in  the  hedge  of  Paradise  Circle  was  the 
first  that  I  had  ever  seen  there.  If  he 
had  a  mate  she  kept  out  of  my  sight. 
Probably  he  was  in  search  of  her,  for  he 
mounted  to  the  topmost  spray  of  a  fringe- 
bush  and  called  loudly  in  a  clear,  ringing 
voice  supremely  cheerful  and  insistent. 
But  no  answer  came  ;  a  foraging  hawk  may 
have  had  a  good  meal  picking  the  bones 
of  Madam  Grosbeak. 

Speaking  of  hawks,  they  play  a  leading 
57 


IparaMse  Circle 

part  in  the  tragedy  of  avian  life.  My  notes 
of  observation  have  abundant  references 
to  hairbreadth  escapes,  bloody  murders, 
sudden  swoopings,  and  desperate  strug- 
gles, with  these  cruel  birds  as  centers  of 
force  and  action.  Wherever  I  have  walked 
in  wood  and  field  the  hawk  has  come  upon 
the  scene,  a  beautiful  and  terrible  appari- 
tion. He  was  the  devil  in  Paradise  Circle, 
and  one  morning  I  did  unto  him  some- 
what as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  doing  unto 
others.  He  fell  upon  a  quail  that  I  had 
been  stalking;  and  it  exasperated  me  to 
see  him  use  his  own  body  as  a  missile  with 
truer  aim  than  I  could  compass  over  my 
tackle.  Indeed,  he  raped  the  game  boldly 
from  its  hiding-place  right  under  my  gaze, 
when  I  was  preparing  to  shoot ;  and  be- 
fore he  could  rise  with  it  I  bowled  him 
over,  the  thief! 

Ah,  if  I  were  but  gifted,  if  I  could  sur- 
prise the  secret  of  genius,  so  that  what  I 
know  about  birds,  what  I  have  seen  them 
do,  what  songs  and  cries  and  rapturous 
gurglings  I  have  heard  from  them,  could 
be  spilled  out  of  my  pen,  an  ink  of  mag- 

58 


paraMse  Circle 

netic  power  to  illuminate  my  pages  withal, 
I  would  write  you  a  bird-book.  It  is  the 
old  fascination,  the  gnawing  desire  to  im- 
part the  thrills  that  one  has  felt.  I  do  not 
feel  lonely  when  I  realize  the  barrier  set 
around  my  ambition.  Who  was  it  of  old 
that  felt  a  mystery  descend  from  the  "  way 
of  an  eagle  in  the  air  "  ?  Dull  indeed  must 
be  the  imagination  into  which  a  May 
morning's  twittering  voices  have  not  left 
a  delightful  cacocthes  scribendi. 

From  Aristotle  down  to  the  charming 
writers  of  to-day  the  bird-note  has  been  a 
fascinating  one  in  literature,  and  it  prob- 
ably will  never  disappear  so  long  as  there 
are  green  woods  and  sunny  meadows  where 
the  gay-winged  and  sweetly  clamorous 
songsters  can  have  a  safe  abiding-place. 
An  esthetic  instinct  of  man  makes  him, 
even  in  his  most  savage  state,  an  admirer 
of  pure  colors  and  tender  sounds.  Birds 
and  flowers  appeal  to  a  sense  of  both 
beauty  and  mystery  through  perfection  of 
color  and  form ;  but  birds  add  two  further 
fascinations — namely,  flight  and  song.  I 
have  seen  a  blue-bird  flutter  dreamily 
59 


paraMse  Ctrcle 

through  the  springtime  air,  like  an  ani- 
mated flower  whose  sky-tinted  petals  had 
become  wings  (meantime  singing  that  most 
memorable  of  all  monotonies,  now  gone 
forever  from  our  Western  country),  and  it 
seemed  to  me  a  perfect  example  of  an 
embodied  self-singing  poem. 

But  I  had  in  mind  bird-literature,  not 
birds  themselves ;  so  I  must  not  lose  my- 
self in  the  flood  of  avian  reminiscences 
which  pours  around  me  at  the  mention  of 
the  vanished  Sialia.  Many  a  sylvan  flute 
was  hushed  before  his.  From  the  leaves 
torn  out  of  the  stone-book  we  read  a 
strange  tale.  On  those  rude  pages  still 
linger  the  sketches  of  birds  extinct  eons 
ago.  It  was  on  my  pen-nib  to  add  that  the 
writings  and  drawings  of  Buff"on,  Audubon, 
and  Wilson  are  almost  as  archaic  as  those 
of  the  quarries.  Looking  over  Audubon's 
plates  the  other  day,  I  was  shocked  to  find 
that  they  no  longer  touched  my  bird-nerve 
as  they  once  did ;  and  as  for  Wilson's, 
what  could  be  flatter  or  less  alive  than 
his  portraits  of  my  favorite  songsters? 

Turning  from  pictures  to  literature,  we 
60 


IParaMse  Circle 

fare  better,  in  a  way.  White  of  Selborne 
has  not  been  surpassed  as  a  gossiper  about 
nature ;  his  book,  being  on  the  level  plane 
of  truth,  yet  saturated  with  a  late-lingering 
and  beautiful  ignorance, — note  his  child- 
like faith  in  the  hibernation  of  swallows, — 
will  always  catch  the  attention  of  imagina- 
tive readers.  For  what  is  more  interesting 
than  simpHcity,  sincerit}^,  and  freshness, 
as  they  blend  in  White's  letters  ?  Wilson 
and  Audubon  make  the  same  claim  upon 
us,  but  in  a  different  way,  with  their  writ- 
ings. How  we  envy  them  their  golden 
age  of  opportunity!  Think  of  American 
bird-land  in  their  day  as  compared  with 
what  is  left  for  us!  Not  long  ago  I  was 
passing  over  one  of  the  regions  described 
by  Wilson  as  affording  him  rich  materials 
for  his  work.  I  looked  in  vain  for  the 
unbroken  woods,  the  dense  cane-brakes, 
the  blooming  thickets  through  which  he 
made  his  way.  Negro  farm-hands  were 
plowing  the  hillsides  and  valley  flats.  A 
few  crows  and  grackles  hovered  along  the 
fence-rows;  here  and  there  a  meadow-lark 
twinkled  in  the  sun ;  that  was  all. 
6i 


paraMse  Circle 

These  books  about  birds,  this  flavor 
of  Thoreau,  Burroughs,  Seton-Thompson, 
Dr.  Abbott,  this  fragrant  enthusiasm  ex- 
haled by  the  pages  of  Mrs.  Miller's  and 
Mr.  Bradford  Torrey's  works, — all  this 
composite  message  of  literature  and  pic- 
ture, — what  a  blessing !  For  here  we  have 
the  fadeless  tradition.  Birds  may  be  sac- 
rificed for  the  appeasement  of  the  mil- 
liner's god ;  all  of  our  wide  country  may 
lose  its  merry  and  gaily  painted  flakes  of 
frolic  and  feather :  but  the  books  are  ours 
forever.  Dr.  Van  Dyke  and  Charles  M. 
Skinner  have  bottled  up  woodsy  essences 
for  us  which  will  keep  fresh  when  all  the 
trees  have  gone  to  sawdust.  The  sketches 
of  H.  E.  Parkhurst,  of  Colonel  Higginson, 
and  of  Neltje  Blanchan  are  so  steeped  in 
real  bird-life  that  to  turn  their  leaves  is 
like  having  wings  and  flitting  from  grove 
to  grove,  trailing  behind  us  the  arboreal 
melodies  of  thrush  and  bobolink,  with  the 
flowers  under  us  and  the  sky  a  turquoise 
splendor  overhead. 

Still,  I  have  no  time  for  making  cata- 
logues, and  a  bird-book  catalogue  should 
62 


paradise  Circle 

be  a  work  of  art.  To  borrow  from  a 
Kentucky  friend  and  suit  his  statement 
to  my  subject,  all  bird-books  are  charm- 
ing, but  some  are  more  so  than  others. 
The  one  great  masterpiece  has  not  been 
written ;  perhaps  it  never  will  be :  for  the 
days  of  unhindered  and  unstinted  luxury 
by  field  and  flood  are  gone  forever — the 
book  of  birds  should  have  been  the  work 
of  a  pioneer.  Sometimes  I  dream  that, 
could  I  have  been  with  De  Soto  on  his 
tour  from  Florida  to  the  Mississippi,  I 
might  have  left  behind  me  a  volume  of 
incomparable  interest  and  value.  Yet  not 
a  Spaniard  of  them  all  did  a  pen-stroke 
worth  remembering.  Think  what  mar- 
velous wealth  of  bird-life  offered  itself  to 
Bienville  and  his  companions  all  along  the 
Louisiana  coast  and  far  up  the  great  river! 
The  Mexican  invaders  did  have  a  follower 
who  spied  upon  the  tropical  birds  to  an 
extent  just  sufficient  to  be  now  tantalizing; 
but  think  of  the  wasted  opportunity  (to 
gladden  a  hundred  generations)  during  the 
palmy  days  of  the  Jesuit  fathers  from 
Canada  to  South  America!      When  Ponce 

63 


IparaMse  Circle 

de  Leon  went  looking  about  in  the  land  of 
flowers  for  that  magical  well-head  which 
was  to  blacken  his  gray  hairs,  renew  his 
teeth,  whisk  the  wrinkles  from  his  face, 
and  revive  in  his  veins  an  everlasting  bub- 
ble of  joyous  vigor,  it  would  have  been 
enough  for  me  could  I  have  trudged  apace 
with  him  and  filled  innumerable  note- 
books with  sketches  and  descriptions  of  all 
the  swarming  and  clamoring  forms  in  tree- 
top,  thicket,  brake,  on  stream,  pond,  lily- 
pad,  and  floating  weed-raft.  Fountain  of 
Youth  go  hang,  fabulous  gold-mines  con- 
tinue to  shimmer  in  the  distance  !  Give  me 
the  wind-song,  the  bird-song,  and  the  ever 
fresh  surprise  of  a  new  flash  of  color  swung 
across  a  glade  or  forest-rift  by  paroquet 
or  ibis  or  flamingo. 

As  it  is  I  must  be  content,  as  best  I 
can,  to  seek  the  unshorn  nooks  which  may 
still  be  found  here  and  yonder,  spots  like 
Paradise  Circle,  where  the  old  fresh  spirit 
of  wild  nature  yet  keeps  faith  with  the 
birds.  And  if  I  cannot  there  write  a  book, 
I  can  read  one  at  will,  hearing  meantime 
the    same    aerial    voices    that    beat    upon 

64 


IparaMse  Circle 

Homer's  ear  and  stirred  even  the  realistic 
heart  of  Aristotle  to  keeping  time  with 
romance.  Chaucer  serves  me  well ;  like- 
wise old  Izaak  of  the  rod  and  fly ;  yea, 
any  man's  book  written  under  the  influ- 
ence of  nature  is  good  to  read  with  soli- 
tude and  a  bow  for  company,  while  into 
my  blood  steals  that  subtle  sense  of  free- 
dom, nameless,  vague,  restful,  satisfying, 
which  somehow  relates  back  through  gen- 
erations and  civilizations  to  the  remotest, 
the  most  primitive  Paradise  Circle. 


65 


Mbere  the  fB>ocMnG==birt)  SiUQe 

TTOUR  sylvan  archer  must  have  his 
JL  lounging  days  and  his  days  of  idle 
wandering,  when,  free  and  easy,  quite  out 
of  sympathy  with  his  tackle,  he  seeks  after 
romance  as  it  exists  in  the  haunts  of  the 
birds.  He  cannot  be  a  savage  for  a  great 
while  without  feeling  satiated.  Even  the 
music  of  his  longbow  fails  to  charm  him, 
and  he  has  no  taste  for  its  arrow's  thrilling 
diminuendo,  or  for  the  stroke  of  a  success- 
ful shot. 

One  thing  you  may  bear  in  mind,  how- 
ever, to  wit,  that  this  same  archer,  no 
matter  where  he  lounges  or  where  he 
wanders,  will  have  his  ancient  weapons  at 
hand.  Cloyed  for  the  time,  glad  of  a 
change  from  reality  to  dreams,  he  yet,  out 
of  habit,  keeps  in  touch  with  his  tackle  and 
66 


Mbere  tbe  /IDoclfttna^birb  Sings 

has  a  corner  of  an  eye  trained  upon  the 
possibility,  remote  as  it  may  be,  of  stum- 
bhng  against  an  opportunity  for  a  memo- 
rable shot.  Even  in  a  hammock  he  dozes 
better  when  the  yew  and  the  quiver  lie 
contentedly  beside  him.  The  arrow-fea- 
thers seem  to  fan  his  dreams. 

I  recall  some  loiterings  with  the  mock- 
ing-birds in  the  country  of  the  Creoles 
along  our  Southern  border.  Those  read- 
ers who  do  not  care  for  poetry  may  as 
well  pass  by  this  little  chapter.  What  the 
mocking-bird  does  is  all  poetry;  and  al- 
though I  do  but  record  unvarnished  facts 
of  his  history,  they  somehow,  in  spite 
of  my  stumbHng  prose,  fit  themselves  to- 
gether with  a  melic  tunefulness  not  to  be 
connected  with  ordinary  realities,  save  by 
the  poet  and  the  sylvan  archer. 

If  there  is  anything  more  dreamily 
romantic  than  swinging  in  a  hammock  on 
a  breezy  bluff  of  our  Creole  Gulf-coast 
when  the  spring  weather  is  fine,  it  would 
be  worth  a  good  deal  to  experience  it. 
The  wind  from  the  Caribbean  region  has 
nothing  chilly  in   it ;    but  it  fondles  you 

67 


Mbere  tbe  /IDocfttng^birD  Sings 

with  a  cooling  touch,  and  passes  on  into 
the  woods  of  oak  and  pine,  to  send  back  a 
half-wintry  moan  from  the  dusky  foliage. 
The  Gulf-tides  are  but  slight,  and  the  surf 
is  a  mere  ripple,  for  there  are  outlying 
islands  all  along,  seeming  to  hang  between 
sea  and  sky  a  protecting  curtain  against 
outside  forces.  If  the  breeze  turns  about 
and  blows  from  the  land,  it  comes  filtered 
and  purified  through  leagues  of  resinous 
forest.  At  such  a  time  the  fragrances  are 
many,  running  through  all  shades  from 
the  evanescent  balm  of  liquid  amber  to 
the  acicular  pungence  of  tar. 

All  around  the  mocking-birds  sing,  and 
it  may  be  that  a  negro,  with  a  voice  as 
sweet  as  a  flute's,  warbles  lazily  a  stanza 
in  patois  which  might  be  from  the  spring 
song  of  Bertrand  de  Born : 

E  platz  me  quant  aug  la  baudor 
Dels  auzels  que  fan  retentir 
Lor  cant  per  lo  boscatge,  etc. 

Indeed,  this  is  the  place  for  reading  old 
ballaeds^and  chansons;  there  is  a  sugges- 
tion of  five  hundred  years  ago  in  its  en- 
68 


Mbere  tbe  /IDocF?tng:=btrt)  Sings 

vironment.  Over  yonder  in  New  Orleans, 
at  a  second-hand  book-stall  on  Royal 
Street,  you  may  find  mildewed  copies  of 
books  brought  from  Paris  before  the  time 
of  Casa  Calvo.  Some  of  these  show  the 
scholarly  temperament  and  taste  of  the 
French  Creole  of  the  old  days.  If  you 
have  secured  the  right  one,  turn  its  musty 
leaves  as  you  swing  in  the  wind,  and  you 
can  almost  hear  the  lilt  of  the  troubadours. 
Your  entourage  is  meridional  and  in  a  way 
medieval ;  there  is  a  fine  correspondence 
between  the  book  and  the  atmosphere. 
Actually,  the  other  day  two  dreamy  peas- 
ant-looking girls  strolled  arm-in-arm  past 
me,  one  of  them  singing  a  snatch  from 
Ronsard : 

Mignonne,  allons  voir  si  la  rose, 
Qui  ce  matin  avoit  desclose 
Sa  robe  de  pourpre  au  soleil, 

and  so  on,  as  they  disappeared  amid  the 
low-hanging  moss  of  a  live-oak  grove. 

A  Creole  mocking-bird  took  up  the 
gay  strain,  so  it  sounded,  fitting  the  spirit 
of  it  to  an  avian  mood.      I  could  tell  by 

69 


Mbere  tbe  /iDocftlngssbltD  Sings 

the  songster's  position  just  where  the  cabin 
was  to  which  the  girls  were  going;  for 
these  resident  mocking-birds  hang  about 
the  gardens  and  fig-clumps  of  the  negroes 
and  Creole  peasants.  They  are  different 
from  their  more  enterprising  relatives,  I 
have  lately  discovered,  in  disposition  and 
singing  power,  having  lost  through  semi- 
domestication  a  certain  indescribable  sweet 
saiivagerie  of  manner  and  voice,  the  last  re- 
finement of  the  mocking-bird  quality  in  the 
migrant  which  comes  up  from  the  far  South 
on  the  first  strong  flood  of  spring  weather. 
It  is  notable  that  the  resident  mock- 
ing-birds of  the  Creole  coast  seem  to 
prefer  the  vicinity  of  a  cabin  for  their  nest- 
ing-places, and  they  rarely  build  near  a 
mansion.  The  negroes  and  French  peasants 
usually  have  a  clump  of  orange-trees,  a 
few  gnarled  fig-trees,  and  a  rude  bower  of 
scuppernong  grape-vines,  in  the  midst  of 
which  a  tiny  cot  of  boards  or  logs  is 
almost  hidden.  Here  our  incomparable 
songster  has  found  his  lotus-land,  away 
from  which  he  will  not  wander  more.  He 
has  lost,  under  the  eaves  of  these  lowly 
70 


Mbere  tbe  /lftocfnng*=bir^  SiwQS 

embowered  domestic  centers,  the  ancient 
hereditament  of  migration  and  is  rapidly 
degenerating.  An  easy  hfe  and  a  diet 
quite  different  from  what  the  old  wander- 
ing experience  afforded  has  greatly  in- 
jured him.  Dissection  has  shown  me  that 
while  the  migrants  are  always  in  perfect 
health  the  residents  are  subject  to  a  fatty 
degeneracy  of  the  vital  organs.  Evidently 
this  difference  is  due  to  the  change  from 
a  natural  and  wholesome  life  to  one  charged 
with  the  evils  of  semi-domestication. 

Some  naturalists  with  whom  I  have 
conversed  hold  to  the  theory  that  the 
resident  mocking-birds  and  the  migrant 
ones  are  separated  by  a  specific  difference 
in  nature  not  marked  by  any  external 
badge ;  but  it  is  plain  to  my  mind  that 
the  difference  is  mere  degeneracy  of  those 
birds  which  have,  out  of  sheer  laziness, 
taken  up  with  a  life  of  ease,  and  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  debauchery,  offered  to  them 
by  the  orchards,  vineyards,  and  berry- 
patches  of  mankind. 

The  resident  mocking-birds  are  mar- 
velous singers,  but  I  have  to  conclude  that 
71 


XPdlbere  tbe  /IDocftlng^birt)  Sings 

the  migrants  outdo  them  at  every  point. 
Indeed,  you  have  never  found  the  true 
mocking-bird  strain  till  you  have  heard 
the  dropping-song  of  a  genuine  wanderer 
on  his  way  to  the  nesting-place,  or  after 
he  has  reached  it  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
can  say  that  I  believe  I  have  never  yet 
heard  a  resident  mocking-bird  sing  the 
dropping-song. 

If  we  could  know  that  before  men  built 
homes  in  our  woods  the  non-migrants 
lingered  around  in  favored  spots,  as  they 
do  around  the  farms  and  orchards  now, 
we  might  conclude  that  there  is  something 
in  a  change  of  scene,  climate,  and  diet  to 
affect  bird-Hfe,  without  attributing  the  de- 
generacy of  which  I  have  spoken  to  the 
influence  of  the  unnatural  food  and  the 
comparative  idleness  afforded  by  a  depen- 
dence upon  man.  It  cannot  be  definitely 
shown,  however,  that  the  non-migrant 
mocking-birds  were  such  before  man 
tempted  them  and  they  did  eat;  for 
ere  the  Frenchman  came  to  our  Gulf- 
coast  the  Indian  was  there  with  his 
house  and  his  plot  of  cultivated  ground. 
72 


Mbere  the  jflDocF?ing«=btrD  Sings 

The  land  of  the  mocking-bird  is  a  coun- 
try where  for  ages  the  savages  were  not 
too  savage  to  love  fruit  and  corn  and  suc- 
culent vegetables,  and  to  revel  in  banquet- 
ing. The  wild  men  knew  where  the  soil 
was  most  fertile,  and  their  imagination  led 
them  to  beautify  many  a  spot  until  it  was 
like  an  earthly  paradise.  We  are  told  by 
the  old  explorers  and  by  subsequent  his- 
tory that  some  of  the  Indian  farms  were 
charming  garden-spots.  One  chief  gave 
his  estate  the  name  White  Apple  on 
account  of  the  snowy  blooms  of  his  fruit- 
trees.  Such  places  were  Edens  wherein 
our  bird  was  tempted  of  the  devil,  and 
fell.  The  serpent's  name  was  laziness  and 
unnatural  food. 

The  Southern  Indian  loved  the  mocking- 
bird, and  imagined  that  he  paid  his  sweet- 
heart the  most  delicate  compHment  when 
he  compared  her  to  it.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  original  name  of  our  singer  was; 
but  I  do  know  that  ingenuity  could  hardly 
invent  an  uglier  one  than  mocking-bird. 
The  Creole  name,  moqiieur,  meaning  what 
ours  does,  is  far  more  musical.  In  the 
73 


Mbere  tbe  /iDocftlng^btrC)  Sings 

negro  patois  it  is  zozo,  a  corruption  of 
oiseaii ;  but  moqueur  is  used  even  in  the 
**  gumbo,"  when  the  mocking-bird  must 
be  particularly  distinguished  from  other 
small  birds.  I  heard  a  little  negro  sing- 
ing: 

Poc  un  moqueur,  poc  un  geai, 
Poc  un  zozo  po'  I'pate ; 

which  I  took  to  mean : 

Not  a  mocker,  not  a  jay, 
Not  a  little  bird  for  a  pie. 

It  is  said  that  a  superstition  among  the 
Creoles  of  color  keeps  them  from  killing 
the  mocking-bird,  which  they  believe  to 
be  a  messenger  from  the  happy  land.  I 
might  place  more  faith  in  the  story  had  I 
not  often  seen  a  hulking  half-breed  return- 
ing from  the  woods  with  his  old  blunder- 
buss on  his  shoulder,  and  in  his  hand  a 
bunch  of  dead  robins  and  moqueurs.  This 
same  blunderbuss  is  fast  destroying  the 
singing-birds  of  the  South,  and  threatens 
to  rob  the  dreamy  woods  of  our  Creole 
74 


Mbere  tbe  /lDoc??tng*birC)  ^ims 

coast  of  all  their  melody  and  all  their  wing- 
rustle. 

But  I  must  not  do  injustice  to  the 
shooters,  black  or  white.  The  birds — not 
only  the  mockers,  but  nearly  all  the  others 
as  well — are  probably  doomed  to  complete 
or  approximate  extinction.  The  man  with 
the  gun,  or,  if  you  please,  with  the  bow,  is 
not  the  malefactor  that  some  good  souls 
imagine  him  to  be.  He  is  guilty  of  sundry 
depredations,  sins  against  the  law  of  uni- 
versal bird  protection,  that  he  cannot  deny ; 
but  he  may  well  object  to  vicarious  re- 
ceptivity when  the  day  of  punitive  gift- 
offering  comes,  and  somebody  proposes 
making  him  the  recipient  of  every  other 
transgressor's  share  as  well  as  his  own. 

The  boy  who  shoots  with  an  air-gun 
or  a  cheap  fowling-piece  or  an  india-rub- 
ber sling  must  take  second  place  in  the 
rank  of  martyrs.  He  kills  a  few  little 
birds  and  frightens  many.  He  is  a  nui- 
sance and  should  be  purified;  but  he  gets 
far  more  blame  than  his  actual  misde- 
meanors deserve.  Then  comes  the  col- 
lector of  skins  and  feathers,  the  man  who 
75 


mbere  tbe  jflDocmng«=l)trC)  Sings 

supplies  museums,  private  collections,  and 
milliners'  shops.  He  is  a  bad  fellow;  he 
kills  for  money.  Still,  his  slaughterings, 
numerous  as  they  certainly  are,  look 
insignificant  when  compared  with  the 
enormous  decrease  of  bird-life. 

The  reports  once  in  a  while  made  out 
by  zoological  societies  and  other  organiza- 
tions in  the  interest  of  natural-history  study 
are  valuable  in  a  way ;  but  one  cannot 
read  them  without  smelling  book-dust 
where  the  pure  air  of  outdoors  ought  to 
be,  and  feeling  that  they  are  based  upon 
scattered  and  somewhat  unreliable  de- 
tails, rather  than  upon  the  larger  and  more 
generally  influential  facts  of  nature  and  life. 
This  is  especially  true  as  regards  what 
has  been  done  in  the  matter  of  accounting 
for  the  remarkable  disappearance  of  birds 
from  large  districts  in  their  natural  do- 
main. The  gun-bearer,  the  feather-hunter, 
and  the  murderous  small  boy  with  the 
sling  are  not  the  main  agent  of  bird  de- 
struction, and  I  wish  to  give  a  few  items  of 
evidence  in  this  connection. 

Game  laws  for  the  protection  of  deer 
76 


mbcvc  tbe  /IDoc?;ino*btrD  ^ims 

cannot  prevent  the  complete  disappearance 
of  those  beautiful  animals  from  a  country- 
devoted  to  modern  agriculture.  When 
all  the  woods  are  cut  down,  and  all  the 
plains  are  put  to  the  plow,  there  is  no 
home  left  for  the  bear  and  the  bison. 
Drain  the  bogs,  and  what  can  the  wood- 
cock do  for  a  living?  Reclaim  all  the  wet 
lands,  and  ditch  away  the  waters  of  ponds 
and  lakes,  but  after  that  look  in  vain  for 
snipe  and  duck.  Destroy  the  thickets  and 
briery  tangles  (they  are  unsightly  and 
unprofitable  on  the  farm,  no  matter  how 
necessary  they  are  to  the  quail),  and  then 
look  in  vain  for  bevies  in  the  neatly  shorn 
fields.  Your  bluebirds,  that  once  had  the 
old  worm  fences  with  hollow  stakes  to 
build  in,  cannot  accept  the  barbed-wire 
substitute ;  where  shall  their  nests  be  hid- 
den? What  are  the  gay  woodpeckers  to 
do  when  you  carefully  cut  away  and  burn 
every  dead  tree  and  bough? 

Every  summer   I   am   more   and   more 

curious    to    know  how   the    meadow-lark 

survives,    how    it    succeeds    in    rearing    a 

brood,  when   year  by  year  the  meadows 

77 


Mbere  tbe  /iDoc??mg*birD  %ims 

in  which  it  builds  are  cut  closer  and  closer 
by  the  clanging  mowing-machine,  and 
when  the  seeds  it  loves  are  not  permitted 
to  ripen.  Where  do  the  quail  find  winter 
shelter  on  our  highly  cultivated  and 
smoothly  shorn  farms?  The  food  of  the 
wild  pigeon  is  gone,  and  gone  forever  are 
the  countless  hosts  of  pigeons.  When  I 
was  a  child  the  beautiful  and  magnificent 
log-cock  was  everywhere  seen  in  the 
woods  of  our  country.  Now  it  is  rare, 
save  in  a  few  remote  wildernesses.  Why  ? 
Because  the  rotten  wood  in  which  its  food 
is  found  has  been  long  ago  made  into 
heaps  and  burned  by  the  sturdy  men  who 
have  caused  farms  and  plantations  to  su- 
persede the  forests. 

In  the  old  days  of  bramble  tangles  and 
hazel  thickets  there  were  no  frozen  bevies. 
Lately  I  have  seen  sixteen  quails,  stiff  as 
icicles,  in  a  pitiful  little  cluster,  where,  all 
unprotected,  the  zero  weather  had  caught 
them,  as  Tennyson  has  it,  in  its  "  frozen 
palms."  Then,  the  hungry  hawks  have 
their  will  of  birds  where  there  is  no  thick 
cover  for  them  to  hide  in,  and  the  farm- 

78 


TObere  tbe  /iDocfting^^btrt)  Sings 

house  cats,  prowling  from  field  to  field 
and  from  orchard  to  orchard,  devour 
every  fledgling  that  they  can  find.  By 
night  the  owls  hunt  with  the  cats.  The 
farmer's  pigs,  nosing  everywhere,  eat  up 
the  eggs  of  all  birds  that  nest  on  the 
ground. 

It  is  true  that  the  plume-gatherers  have 
killed     thousands    of     herons;     but     the 
farmer's   drains — the  canals  and   covered 
ditches    whereby    vast    areas    of    watery 
feeding-grounds   have   been   made  dry — 
have  killed  millions.      Fifty  years  ago  the 
sloppy  prairies  and  queachy  bog-lands  of 
Illinois,  Iowa,  Indiana,  Michigan,  and  Ohio 
were  the  haunts   of   countless  swarms   of 
migrating  herons,  geese,  brant,  duck,  and 
crane;    now   very   few   are   seen,   because 
this    intermediate    resting-    and    feeding- 
ground   has    been   unavailable   for    years. 
Even  the  small  herons  and  bitterns,  never 
much  shot,   are  becoming  scarce  for  the 
same  reason.      Hundreds  of  small  streams 
once  in  their  feeding-  and  breeding-places 
are  now  dry  as  a  bone.     Not  long  ago  I 
visited  a  spot  where  formerly  the  wood- 
79 


mibcvc  the  /iDocfttuG^btrb  Sims 

ducks  bred.  I  found  that  the  wood  and 
the  pond  had  disappeared,  and  there  grew 
a  vast  field  of  corn. 

Give  wild  things  the  least  bit  of  wilder- 
ness, and  they  will  survive  in  spite  of 
nature  and  man.  The  other  day  a  wild- 
cat attacked  a  child  in  one  of  the  oldest 
settled  parts  of  Indiana.  It  came  out  of 
an  unreclaimed  ravine  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ohio  River.  I  saw  a  lone  log-cock  in  a 
considerable  wood  of  the  Kankakee  region 
a  few  years  ago.  But  you  cannot  save 
the  birds  and  at  the  same  time  starve  them, 
and  refuse  them  both  nesting- places  and 
shelter  from  the  cold.  Woman's  hats  and 
man's  guns  are  hard  on  birds,  but  the 
rustic's  utensils  are  harder  on  them.  En- 
lightened farming,  the  making  of  produc- 
tive and  neatly  shorn  estates,  the  march  of 
the  plow,  the  ditching-machine,  the  under- 
ground tile,  the  patent  reaper  and  mower 
and  thresher,  the  cats,  the  owls,  the  hawks, 
winter  without  shelter,  summer  without 
food,  spring  without  nesting-places,  these 
are  the  agencies  that  are  destroying  birds 
by  the  wholesale.  And  then,  there  is  the 
So 


XKDlbere  tbe  /E)oc[?tno==btrt>  Sings 

English   sparrow — a   murrain    seize   him! 
What  is  left  he  takes. 

Ever  since  American  birds  began  to  be 
studied  the  mocking-bird  has  been  a  favor- 
ite of  the  descriptive  ornithologists.  A 
vast  amount  of  fine  writing  has  been  the 
result,  mostly  sonorous  prose,  for,  happily, 
the  bird's  despicable  name  has  kept  him 
in  a  large  degree  exempt  from  the  em- 
balming process  known  only  to  the  poets. 
John  Lawson  fairly  began  the  work;  but 
it  was  Mark  Catesby  who,  in  his  "  Natural 
History  of  Carolina,"  etc.,  first  opened  wide 
the  gate  into  the  region  of  American  bird- 
song.  Alexander  Wilson  soon  followed 
with  his  superb  achievements ;  then  came 
Charles  Lucien  Bonaparte,  Thomas  Nuttall, 
and  William  Swainson.  But  the  crowning 
work  was  done  by  a  man  of  the  Creole 
coast:  Audubon  gave  the  mocking-bird 
a  brilliant  biography.  Before  this,  how- 
ever, the  great  Buffon  had  romanced  at  a 
distance,  and  by  sheer  force  of  style — 
which  in  his  celebrated  address  he  said 
"'is  the  man  himself" — had  come  very 
near  describing  the  dropping-song,  which 
^  8i 


Wibcvc  tbe  /IDockin^^birD  Sime 

no  one  seems  really  to  have  noticed  before 
I  mentioned  it  a  few  years  ago. 

What  for  convenience  I  have  called  the 
Creole  coast  begins  at  Pensacola,  Florida, 
and  ends  at  the  mouth  of  the  Sabine  River, 
between  Louisiana  and  Texas.  A  lei- 
surely tour  in  spring  from  one  of  these 
points  to  the  other  leads  through  the  para- 
dise of  the  mocking-birds,  so  far  as  the 
resident  ones  are  concerned ;  but  the  area 
over  which  the  bird  is  more  or  less  evenly 
distributed,  both  as  resident  and  migrant, 
represents  almost  a  third  of  our  national 
domain.  The  lovely  hill  country  around 
Tallahassee,  the  regions  of  Savannah  and 
Charleston,  and  many  favored  spots  on  the 
peninsula  of  Florida,  are  swarming  with 
them.  The  farther  north  we  go  the  fewer 
of  them  we  see  until  we  cross  the  line  of 
40°  north  latitude,  where  they  practically 
disappear,  though  straggling  adventurers 
have  been  reported  on  the  Canadian  line 
and  in  certain  parts  of  New  England.  The 
width  of  their  habitat  is  from  the  Atlan- 
tic to  the  Pacific,  on  a  line  with  our  Gulf- 
coast. 

82 


TKHbere  tbe  /lDocftings=btrb  Sings 

Every  spring,  for  many  years,  I  have 
studied  the  mocking-bird  in  his  favorite 
haunts,  and  have  been  upon  most  intimate 
terms  with  his  household.  The  resident 
bird  is  so  tame  that  his  habits  are  as  open 
to  inspection  as  are  those  of  any  domestic 
fowl ;  but  quite  the  contrary  is  true  of  the 
migrant,  whose  nature  seems  never  to 
have  lost  a  line  of  its  wildness.  Dr.  Elliott 
Coues,  in  his  excellent  work,  *'  Key  to 
North  American  Birds,"  remarks  that  the 
mocking-bird's  power  of  song  may  be 
greatly  improved  by  training  when  in 
captivity.  This  is  contrary  to  my  ob- 
servation. The  migrant,  which  is  the  only 
genuine  moqiteiir  saiLvage,  has  a  voice  in- 
comparably more  brilliant  and  powerful 
than  is  ever  sent  forth  from  a  cage,  and 
there  is  a  great  difference  between  the 
singing  of  a  free  resident  bird  and  that  of 
one  reared  in  captivity — so  great,  indeed, 
that  I  can  readily  distinguish  the  superior 
purity  and  sweetness  of  the  former,  even  at 
a  long  distance,  when  both  birds  are  hidden 
from  me.  In  the  region  of  Bay  St.  Louis, 
Mississippi,   the   cots    and    cabins    of    the 

83 


Mbere  the  /iDocfttng^btrD  ^ims 

negroes  are  scattered  through  the  pine 
woods,  and  each  has  its  one  pair,  at  least, 
of  resident  mocking-birds  Hving  in  the 
Httle  orchard  round  about.  On  the  rude 
veranda  you  frequently  see  a  bird-cage 
containing  its  lonely  captive  moqueur.  In 
my  leisurely  rambles  I  have  had  the  plea- 
sure of  hearing  captive,  resident,  and 
migrant  singing  at  the  same  time,  not 
two  hundred  feet  apart.  There  is  no  mis- 
taking the  joyous,  triumphant  strain  of 
him  whose  life  has  been  perfected  in  the 
broadest  freedom  of  nature.  It  is  the 
strain  of  genius,  audacious,  defiant,  un- 
trammeled — a  voice  of  absolute  indepen- 
dence crying  in  the  wilderness. 

I  have  never  heard  the  nightingale's 
song;  therefore  I  have  no  actual  know- 
ledge, from  comparative  study,  upon  which 
to  base  a  decision  in  the  intercontinental 
dispute  as  to  the  world's  championship  in 
bird-music ;  nor  does  the  matter  much  in- 
terest me.  What  seems  to  me  worth  while, 
however,  is  the  practical  test  which  would 
naturally  come  to  the  question  of  superior- 
ity were  the  nightingale  imported  and  freed 
84 


Mbere  tbe  /IDoc?;tng«=btrb  Sims 

in  our  Southern  woods.  The  mocking-bird 
is  a  challenger;  he  loves  nothing  so  much 
as  a  song-battle.  The  brown  thrush  is  the 
only  bird  that  he  has,  so  far,  found  willing 
to  take  up  his  gage.  I  have  seen  these 
two  rivals,  each  on  the  highest  point  of  a 
tree,  dashing  melodious  noise  back  and 
forth  for  a  whole  hour  without  rest.  It 
would  be  a  notable  battle  were  our  young 
republican  singer  to  cross  notes  with  the 
old  hereditary  king  of  song.  From  all 
that  I  can  gather,  it  would  be  the  old  story 
over  again :  youth,  vigor,  fearlessness,  and 
absolute  freedom  would  win.  I  have  had 
correspondence  with  many  distinguished 
ornithologists  of  America  and  of  Europe, 
and  have  met  not  a  few  of  them.  The 
almost  unanimous  opinion  among  them 
seems  to  be  that  the  mocking-bird  is  the 
greatest  of  avian  singers — the  "  arboreal 
Shakspere,"  as  one  has  said. 

To  describe  the  mocking-bird's  song, 
even  as  delivered  from  a  cage,  is  not 
within  the  power  of  any  writer.  To  be 
understood  it  must  be  heard  in  the  soli- 
tude of  nature,  at  one  of  those  favored 
8s 


Mbere  tbe  /IDocfttng^btrb  Sings 

oases  which  lie  scattered  through  the 
Southern  forests  Hke  islands  of  bloom  in 
a  desert  of  dusky  swamps  and  funereal 
moss.  Each  note  is  a  wonder,  each  strain 
a  mystery.  Here  is  a  bird  considerably 
smaller  than  a  blue  jay,  delicate,  fragile, 
whose  weight  will  scarcely  bend  the  slen- 
derest twig;  but  out  of  its  tiny  throat 
leaps  a  rapturous  medley  of  flute-notes, 
pure  and  liquid  as  spring-water,  easily 
heard  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away !  Easily, 
I  say ;  but  in  special  cases  it  has  been 
heard  much  farther.  Buffon  heard  it 
across  nearly  four  thousand  miles  of  land 
and  sea,  and  described  it  with  enthusiastic 
coloring,  in  the  same  way  that  so  many 
of  our  non-migrant  American  poets  have 
heard  the  nightingale  distinctly  enough 
to  weave  his  strains  into  their  verse. 

In  one  of  my  pedestrian  tours  along  the 
bank  of  the  Jordan, — not  the  one  on  whose 
"stormy  banks"  the  hymn- writer  stood 
to  "  cast  a  wishful  eye,"  but  the  Jordan 
through  which,  at  its  head  waters,  John  A, 
Murrell  rode  often  in  his  pursuit  of  dark 
deeds, — I  lately  came  upon  a  spot  where 
86 


Mbere  tbe  /IDoc??tna*bir^  SirxQS 

the  mocking-birds  were  holding  high  revel. 
The  haw-bushes  and  the  yaupon-trees 
that  hedged  a  little  glade  were  in  full 
greenery,  with  a  flash  of  white  flowers 
here  and  there.  Under  the  foliage,  by 
stooping,  I  could  see  on  one  hand  the 
river's  sheen,  and  on  the  other  a  flat  marsh 
where  some  herons  were  wading  with  a 
motion  that  suggested  Japanese  art. 

With  an  old  pine  log  for  a  sofa,  I  sat  at 
ease  a  long  while,  making  mental  note 
of  the  concert,  which,  without  director, 
and  exempt  from  rhyme  and  reason,  fairly 
raged  in  the  circular  grove.  There  were 
some  thrushes  and  one  or  two  warblers 
doing  what  they  might  to  be  heard,  but 
the  mockers  had  it  all  their  own  way ;  and 
such  a  din !  It  was  a  cour  d' amour  held 
by  the  migrants  lately  returned  from  their 
winter  in  the  tropic  region,  and  they  had 
many  c  nd  exciting  points  of  love  to  settle. 
One  fin  ^  fellow  came  and  perched  near 
me  on  a  prickly  spray  of  yaupon,  where 
ha  danced  as  if  the  thorns  were  too  sharp 
for  his  feet.  With  wings  slightly  akimbo, 
he  skipped  and  hopped  and  dealt  out  the 

87 


mbere  tbe  f^ocMng^biv^  Sin^s 

most  delicate  and  all  but  ludicrous  jig- 
steps  in  a  narrow  circle,  singing  mean- 
time a  medley  that  sparkled  with  notes 
and  phrases  stolen  bodily  from  the  songs 
of  other  birds. 

It  was  here  that,  after  several  seasons 
of  patient  watching  and  disappointment,  I 
witnessed  once  again  in  its  fullest  perfec- 
tion the  performance  of  the  dropping-song, 
and  satisfied  myself  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
ecstasy  out  of  which  that  strange  lyric  prod- 
uct is  generated.  The  exhibition  opened  in 
this  case  with  a  long,  singularly  pure  trill 
from  a  bird  standing  upright  with  tightly 
closed  wings  on  a  small  bushy  magnoHa- 
tree.  The  moment  that  the  voice  reached 
my  ear  I  felt  sure  that  the  dropping-song 
was  coming.  Something  in  the  strange, 
appealing  richness  of  the  tone  foretold  a 
masterpiece  of  bird-music.  I  crept  to  a 
spot  where  I  had  unobstructed  view  of  the 
performer,  and  almost  held  my  breath  as 
I  looked  and  hstened.  In  spite  of  the 
reporter's  mood  in  which  for  two  or  three 
years  I  had  longed  for  the  occasion,  I 
could  hardly  bring  myself  to  the  task  of 
88 


calmly  making  notes.  The  men  of  science, 
those  excellent  fellows  who  firmly  believe 
that  the  truths  of  nature  cannot  be  told  with 
a  view  to  literature  in  the  telling,  had  been 
treating  my  dropping-song  story  to  baths  of 
dust  in  the  waste-baskets  of  their  garrets 
in  order  to  give  more  glory  to  the  special- 
ists who  study  bird-song  in  college  mu- 
seums, and  so  I  wanted  to  make  a 
"  scientific  report  "  of  what  was  now  going 
on  before  me. 

After  the  first  long  trill  the  bird  ex- 
tended its  wings  to  almost  their  full  length, 
lifting  them  somewhat  above  the  level  of 
its  back,  where  they  quivered  v/ith  a  deli- 
cate rapidity  that  made  them  shimmer  in 
the  sunlight.  It  now  began  to  give  forth 
phrase  after  phrase  of  quavering  melody, 
which  deepened  in  power  momentarily, 
until,  with  a  marvelous  staccato  cry,  the 
singer  vaulted  into  the  air  and  whirled  over 
backward,  to  flutter  down  through  the  fo- 
liage to  a  point  in  the  tree-top  some  three 
feet  below  where  he  had  begun.  There 
it  fell  rather  than  lighted,  and  lolled  half 
helplessly  among  the  leaves,  but  pouring 

89 


IKllbere  tbe  /IDocUtuG^birt)  Sings 

out    meantime    strains    so    sweet    and    so 
flooded    with    ecstatic    feeling    that    they 
sounded  to  me  at  times  almost  human.      I 
have  heard  a  soprano  in  a  lift  of  fortunate 
self-forgetfulness  trill  like  that  above  the 
ordinary  register  of  safety.      As   I   recall 
the  occasion  now  it  seems  to  me  that  all 
the   birds   in   the   grove   suddenly   ceased 
their  clamor  to  listen  to  the  master  singer. 
Doubtless  it  was  rapt  concentration  which 
shut     out    from     my    senses     everything 
save  the  lyric  of  more   than   Sapphic  in- 
tensity   and    abandon.      Slowly    the    bird 
tumbled,  with  a  peculiar  throbbing  mo- 
tion of  its  wings,  down  from  limb  to  limb, 
singing  all  the  while,  and  finally  dropped 
to  the  ground,  where  it  stood  swaying  to 
and  fro  with  its  wings  spread  and  quiver- 
ing as  if  exhausted.     Just  then  a  female 
bird,  doubtless  its  mate,  took  to  wing  from 
the  spot  where  she  had  been  chief  witness 
of  the  exhibition.     My  point  was  made  :  I 
had  discovered  beyond  question  that  the 
dropping-song  was  a  love-lyric. 

The  art  of  nest-building  as  practised  by 
the  mocking-bird  shows  a  good  deal  of  the 
90 


Mbere  tbe  /IDocF?lng*btrt)  Sings 

shiftlessness  proverbial  of  genius.  The 
work  is  cleverly  done  in  a  way,  though 
the  sticks  are  flung  together  with  a  loose, 
sketchy  effect,  as  if  the  builder  were  over- 
anxious to  leave  such  prosy  labor  and  get 
back  to  his  song-singing.  The  nest  is 
most  often  set  in  a  crotch,  or  amid  a 
cluster  of  stiff  twigs  only  a  few  feet  from 
the  ground.  The  orange-tree  seems  to  be 
the  favorite  site  for  the  home  of  the  resi- 
dent bird.  Migrants  build  higher,  as  a 
rule,  and  choose  a  situation  well  hidden 
by  foliage.  The  inner  basket  of  the  nest 
is  neatly  lined  and  admirably  fitted  to  the 
bird's  form. 

Although  I  cannot  help  associating  the 
mocking-bird  with  the  far  South  and 
French-Creole  people,  I  have  imagined  that 
the  individuals  which  habitually  venture 
into  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  to  nest  are 
of  hardier  fraitie  and  display  a  more  coura- 
geous disposition  than  those  of  the  Gulf- 
coast ;  they  are  not,  however,  as  good 
singers.  Along  the  well- watered  valleys 
of  the  Cumberland  Mountains  the  birds 
appear  in  April  and  May,  and  sing  for  a 
91 


short  while  quite  vigorously ;  but  they  are 
soon  silent.  In  the  Creole  country  you 
may  hear  them  in  full  song  from  February 
till  June.  I  found  some  of  them  nesting 
as  early  as  the  loth  of  February  on  the 
Gulf-coast  in  1890.  The  mulberry-blooms 
were  unseasonably  forward,  and  the  frost, 
an  unusually  late  one,  caught  the  ripe 
berries  on  the  26.  of  March.  The  mock- 
ing-birds had  been  singing  more  than  a 
month  when  this  happened.  Suddenly 
the  multitude  of  gay  revelers  became 
dumb ;  not  a  voice  cut  the  crisp,  bracing 
air.  Curious  to  find  out  what  the  birds 
were  doing,  I  went  into  the  orchards  and 
groves  to  spy  upon  them,  visiting  all  the 
nests  that  I  knew  of.  In  nearly  every  case 
a  female  moqueur  stood  on  the  rim  of  the 
nest,  or  close  beside  it,  and  not  far  away 
a  male,  muffled  and  disconsolate-looking, 
poised  himself  on  one  leg,  the  very  em- 
bodiment of  silence  and  frigidity.  Next 
day  the  sun  shone  vigorously  and  the 
wind  came  up  from  the  Gulf.  Then  it  was 
strange  to  see  the  birds  flitting  and  singing 
in  the  blackened  and  wilted  tree-tops. 
92 


mbere  tbe  /IDocF^ino^btrD  Sings 

In  the  suburbs  of  Mobile,  mocking-birds 
haunt  every  garden,  grove,  and  orchard. 
Even  in  the  shady  inclosures  around  the 
mansions  near  the  city,  I  have  heard 
mocking-birds  doing  their  most  brilhant 
work.  New  Orleans  is  still  more  favored 
than  Mobile.  Its  surburban  population, 
with  cottages,  cots,  and  huts  buried  in 
trees,  vines,  and  flowering  shrubs  between 
the  city  proper  and  the  cypress  swamps, 
is  bird-loving  to  a  degree. 

During  recent  years  the  Gulf-coast  has 
attracted  the  attention  of  fruit-growers. 
Pear-trees  especially  have  been  extensively 
planted,  and  many  orchards  are  now  bear- 
ing fruit.  In  the  early  spring,  when  these 
trees  are  in  full  leaf  and  bloom,  the  mock- 
ing-birds revel  in  them,  swinging  on  their 
highest  sprays,  and  blowing  their  fairy 
flutes  from  daybreak  till  evening  dusk.  In- 
deed, when  the  moon  shines  you  may  hear 
them  dreamily  piping  at  all  times  of  the 
night,  and  it  is  an  experience  never  to  be 
forgotten  when,  as  has  often  happened  to 
me,  the  camper-out  is  half  wakened  from 
his  deep  sleep,  to  catch  the  tremulous, 
93 


TPmbere  tbe  /roocfttng^btrt)  Stnas 

drowsy  phrases  of  a  nocturne,  all  but  un- 
earthly in  its  sweetness,  blown  through  the 
perfumed  stillness  of  the  Southern  wood. 
Sometimes  the  birds  hold  a  sort  of  idyllic 
contest,  a  number  of  them  fluting  here, 
there,  yonder,  till  one  might  fancy  that 
the  spirits  of  the  tuneful  shepherds  known 
to  Theocritus  and  his  friends  were  ham- 
mocking   in   the   boscage   round   about. 

These  cheerful  and  brilliant  concerts 
give  the  idly  straying  archer  a  fine  back- 
ground for  his  reveries.  He  indulges  in 
vague  poetic  reflections  not  to  be  seriously 
recorded.  The  consciousness  of  anachron- 
ism, of  being  for  the  time  immensely  re- 
mote from  contemporary  sympathy,  is 
stimulating.  It  completes  recreation. 
With  his  bow  on  his  shoulder,  the  string 
lying  slack,  and  his  quiver  rustling  at  his 
side,  he  lives  the  life  of  Arcadia,  yet  is 
perfectly  aware  of  playing  a  part  with  his 
own  whim  for  audience.  Aimless,  well- 
nigh  thoughtless,  he  treads  at  random  the 
invisible  yet  perfectly  apparent  paths  of  the 
wilderness. 

To  stroll  thus  is  to  realize  the  ethereal. 
94 


Mbere  tbe  fK^oMng^bivb  Sings 

It  is  absolute  relaxation,  an  unhindered, 
unlimited  bath  in  the  freshest  well  of 
imagination.  And  it  has  its  danger;  for 
then  comes  the  ancient  perversity  to  give 
you  a  dash  of  disappointment.  Just  at 
the  point  of  time  when  you  are  wrapped 
in  the  softest  webs  of  dream,  and  are  not 
expecting  anything  short  of  a  divine  poetic 
revelation,  some  large  game-bird  or  rare 
animal  Is  sure  to  offer  itself  as  a  tantalizing 
momentary  target,  only  to  disappear  with 
a  flicker  of  fur  or  feather  when  you  begin 
to  string  your  bow. 

I  remember  losing  the  chance  for  a  shot 
at  a  wild  goose — out  of  season,  to  be  sure, 
but  a  goose  all  the  same — once  on  a  fine 
morning,  while  standing  agaze  at  vacancy, 
listening  to  a  wood-thrush  singing  by  a 
lake-side.  The  huge  game-bird  suddenly 
appeared,  coming  slowly  awing  round  a 
thicket  that  overhung  the  water  not  twenty 
yards  from  me.  It  flew  right  over  my 
head  and  swung  leisurely  out  of  sight 
before  I  could  fairly  comprehend  the  op- 
portunity. An  incident  like  that  can  leaven 
with  bitterness  a  whole  day  of  joy. 
95 


mbere  tbe  /IDocf?lna*btrD  Sings 

But  back  to  our  songsters. 

An  English  artist,  who  tramped  with 
me  awhile  in  the  Gulf-coast  country,  was 
so  captivated  with  the  singing  of  the 
mocking-birds  in  the  orchards  around  Bay 
St.  Louis  that  he  would  sometimes  stand 
and  listen  in  a  rapture  of  delight.  He 
afterward  wrote  me  that  the  one  haunting 
memory  of  our  country — "  a  memory,"  to 
quote  him,  "  which  I  can  never  lose,  and 
for  which  nothing  in  the  world  would  I 
lose" — was  of  the  "bird-songs  heard  on 
that  April  morning  when  we  sat  upon  the 
fence  behind  the  sleepy  old  village  and 
smoked  our  last  pipe  together."  He  often 
told  me  that  the  nightingale  was  not  to 
be  compared,  as  a  singer,  to  our  famous 
bird.  I  tried  hard  to  give  him  the  dis- 
tinguished pleasure  of  hearing  the  drop- 
ping-song,  but  the  effort  failed. 

Among  the  hundreds  who  have  written 
to  me  about  mocking-birds,  the  Hon. 
Theodore  Roosevelt  is  the  only  one  who 
mentions  having  heard  the  dropping-song. 
He  heard  it  near  Nashville,  in  the  night- 
time. "  I  was  immensely  struck,"  he 
96 


Mbere  tbe  /IDocl^tna*btrb  QinQS 

wrote,  "  by  the  performance.  Perhaps 
it  may  have  been  a  narrow  feehng  of 
patriotism  which  influenced  me ;  but  cer- 
tainly it  seemed  to  me  far  finer  than  the 
song  of  any  nightingale  that  I  ever  heard, 
and  I  have  listened  to  them  often  in  north- 
ern Italy."  What  a  shame  that  even  science 
should  combine  with  vulgarity  to  add 
Mimns  polyglottus  to  the  already  repulsive 
name  of  such  a  bird! 


97 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

Were  sunshine  wine  upon  my  board. 

Boozy  every  day  I  'd  be ; 
Were  I  a  miser  I  would  hoard 

All  the  sapphire  of  the  sea. 

OF  all  things  pertaining  to  sedentary 
experiences,  what  is  like  a  long  after- 
noon in  a  hammock,  when  the  sea-wind  has 
free  salt — as  the  chemists  would  say — on 
the  edge  of  its  breath?  A  book  to  read 
must  be  a  part  of  the  thing, — an  old  book, 
the  older  the  better, — and  there  must  be  a 
wide  view  of  the  "  merry  multitudinous 
waves," — xoiidrcav  av'/]fji6[iov  YsXaajia, — with 
sails,  not  steam-flares,  hanging  aslant  over 
rusty  hulls  on  the  horizon. 

Most  people  dream  of  riches  when  they 
swing  idly  ;  but  I  have  had  a  delicious  reve- 
rie over  the  pinched  conditions  of  absolute 

98 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

poverty.  With  mocking-birds  carousing, 
much  after  the  style  of  Anacreon,  in  the 
vernal  tangles  all  around  me  and  above,  I 
have  been  reading  Theocritus,  meantime 
actually  longing  for  a  sheepskin  cloak  and 
a  shepherd's  flute.  The  Gulf's  soft  roar 
and  the  halcyon  blue  came  to  my  senses 
confused, — as  if  sky  and  water  were  clash- 
ing color  and  sound, — while  the  splashing 
of  pelicans  added  a  note  and  some  flashes 
of  its  own  —  a  curious  luUing  discord. 
What  a  fine  atmosphere  it  was  in  which 
to  understand  the  ancient  Arcadian  singer! 
Behind  me  in  the  pine  woods  a  scat- 
tered herd  of  Creole  cattle  wandered,  lazily 
feeding,  the  leader's  neck  bearing  a  pas- 
toral bell  that  tinkled  a  drowsy,  desultory 
tune,  as  the  tunes  of  cow-bells  go.  Some- 
where in  the  foliage  overhead  an  insect 
hummed, — a  lone  one  not  yet  found  out 
by  the  mocking-birds, —  hummed  and 
tapped  sharply  against  the  twigs,  with  just 
a  hint  of  spitefulness  in  each  rebound.  It 
was  not  a  cicada,  but  the  monotonous 
buzz,  with  its  snappish  breaks,  would  have 
charmed  a  Greek  poet,  and  so  it  charmed 
99 


H  poet  of  tbe  ipoor 

me.  Between  the  lines  of  an  idyl,  as  be- 
tween the  golden  bars  of  a  dream-tune,  I 
watched  the  busy  thing  bumping  and 
droning.  It  had  the  scorched  color — 
alGaXicovsc— of  idyllic  cicadas.  What  more 
could  I  want? 

But  out  of  all  the  happy  pastoral  I  drew 
something  not  to  be  had  of  bird,  or  bee,  or 
flickering  waves,  or  tinkling  cow-bell,  or 
from  all  nature  as  seen  and  heard  from 
the  hammock.  The  poet's  Hnes  distilled 
the  honey  of  true  contentment,  and  be- 
dewed my  soul  with  it,  leaving  me  no 
excuse  for  any  of  those  vague  longings 
and  repinings  so  dear  to  one  who  has  not 
everything  that  the  universe  can  offer. 
Somehow,  moreover,  the  landscape,  the 
dreamy  air,  the  rioting  birds,  and  the  soli- 
tary insect,  with  all  that  they  suggested  or 
signified,  slipped  into  the  reading,  while 
the  hammock  gently  listed  on  the  Hterary 
side,  as  though  the  book  in  hand  had  the 
weight  of  gold.  '*  Sweet,  indeed,  the  calf 
calls,  and  sweetly  lows  the  heifer," — yes, 
they  were  mooing  while  I  read, — *'  and  the 
cowherd  blows  sweetly  on  his  syrinx,  and 

lOO 


H  poet  ot  tbe  poor 

I  too  sweetly  join  in  with  mine."  Or 
better,  the  very  words  —  ah,  infinitely 
better,  the  incomparable  music  of  the 
Doric  flute: 

61.00  jULev  d  ii.6aY0(;  •^a.poz'zoLi,  dSu  81  ya  ^wc, 
ct.00  th  y^ct  oup'Y^,  x^  ^oov.6\oz'     aou  hh  X7]Y">v, 
loxl  Si:  jixo'.  Trap'  oooip  ^]/oyp6v    OTcpai;. 

It  is  said  that  we  always  have  the  poor 
with  us ;  and  we  might  strengthen  the  re- 
mark by  adding  that  the  rich  are  seldom 
at  our  doors.  Another  almost  proverbial 
inscription  on  the  lintel  of  poverty  tells 
how  happy  is  life  in  a  hovel  and  how  sweet 
tastes  the  crust  of  stale  bread.  That 
ancient  suggestion,  sandwiched  between 
the  camel  and  the  needle's  eye,  is  right 
cleverly  counterbalanced  by  the  blessed- 
ness and  the  heavenly  inheritance  of  those 
who  are  sufficiently  emaciated  to  go 
through  without  touching  where  a  well- 
fed  man  would  stick  fast. 

Doubtless  poverty  and  a  certain  crude 
happiness  have,  under  favoring  environ- 
ments, sometimes  gone  hand  in  hand;  at 
all  events,  it  is  a  human  tradition,  of  great 

lOI 


H  Ipoet  of  tbe  poor 

attractiveness  to  the  average  healthy  mind, 
that  Arcadia  is  not  wholly  a  myth.  Per- 
sons now  living  will  tell  you  that  the 
pioneer  days  of  log  cabins,  a  pumpkin- 
patch,  and  abundance  of  wild  game, 
afforded  all  the  prime  elements  of  the 
perfect  life.  Among  the  mountaineers  of 
our  Southern  States,  the  naked  factors  of 
existence,  the  stark  essentials,  food,  breath, 
traditional  habits,  a  direct  and  narrow  flow 
of  passions,  and  a  specific,  almost  perfunc- 
tory round  of  experience,  suffice  to  brim 
the  cup  of  life. 

It  seems  that  necessity  born  of  heredi- 
tary indigence  is  perforce  picturesque,  and 
that  want,  when  not  self-conscious,  rises 
easily  to  the  dignity  of  a  natural  attribute 
of  freedom — that  it  is,  indeed,  a  part  of  the 
unconditioned  original  dependence  of  man 
upon  Providence.  In  the  traditions  and 
legends  of  Arcadia  we  recognize  what  is 
but  ancestral  poverty  and  simplicity  robed 
in  the  azure  mist  of  distance.  Imagination 
cannot  have  to  do  with  contemporary  life ; 
it  must  have  perspective,  either  to  the  rear 
or  in  the  future,  by  the  lines  of  which  to 
1 02 


H  poet  ot  tbe  ipoor 

measure  the  proportions  of  its  masses  and 
its  figures ;  and  it  must  have  remoteness 
for  atmospheric  illusions.  The  average 
human  imagination  has  but  two  healthy- 
dreams  :  one  religious,  the  other  in  some 
form  Arcadian.  The  passions  of  avarice, 
greed,  sensuality,  and  thirst  for  power 
are  but  distortions  of  the  simple,  elemen- 
tal desires.  Wealth  and  its  imagined 
blessings  stand  for  a  phase  of  the  old 
Arcadian  dream.  To  be  rich  is  to  have 
all  that  one  wants,  whether  this  be  money 
and  what  it  can  buy,  or  but  the  boon  of 
existence  in  a  bucolic  paradise. 

So  far  as  we  know,  Theocritus  was  the 
first  poet  to  sing  the  fascination  of  pastoral 
life,  and  he  was  the  last  to  sing  it  perfectly. 
Reduced  to  a  simple  reason,  the  power  of 
his  poetry — and  it  is  wonderful — lies  in  the 
universal  sweep  it  makes  over  the  human 
heart  just  so  as  to  blow  the  buds  of  pre- 
monition into  rich  flowers.  It  seems  to 
be  natural  for  us  to  long  backward  toward 
infancy  and  careless  ignorance  of  sin,  as 
well  as  forward  toward  the  beatitudes  of 
the  future  life.  The  Arcadian  singer  calls 
103 


H  poet  ot  tbe  poor 

us  down  the  past  to  the  childhood  of  our 
race,  where  so  many  of  our  dormant  long- 
ings are  rooted  deep  in  primitive  soil. 
His  touch  brings  up  the  racy  sap  of  ancient 
virility  into  our  lives,  and  warms  our 
hearts  with  the  glow  of  almost  forgotten 
elements.  Our  poverty,  our  utter  in- 
digence, as  regards  the  primitive,  natural 
pleasures  of  life,  startles  us  as  we  read  the 
old  Doric  flute-scores  of  this  strangely 
gifted  genius.  How  perfect  was  his  vision 
of  the  original  human  simplicities!  He 
had  artisanship,  knew  how  to  turn  phrases 
and  construct  word-melodies ;  but  his 
knowledge  of  nude  and  rude  character 
and  his  forthright  art  of  sketching  it  once 
and  forever  are  never  subordinated  to  mere 
literature. 

O  Mother  ^tna,  I  too  have  a  home, 
A  pleasant  cavern  in  the  hollow  cliff, 
Where  all  the  wealth  of  dreams  is  heaped  for  me. 

When  we  know  that  the  singer's  treasure 

consisted  of  a  goatskin  bed,  a  hot  pudding, 

and  some   roasted  nuts,  his  primitiveness 

and  his  childlike  sincerity  are  rounded  to 

104 


H  poet  ot  tbe  poor 

perfection  in  our  vision.  He  is  rich  enough, 
he  *'  cares  no  more  for  winter  than  does  a 
toothless  old  man  for  nuts,"  and  by  this 
we  discover  that  he  himself  is  in  the  habit 
of  cracking  walnuts  with  his  molars ! 

Lissome  Bombyca,  men  dare  call  thee  swart, 
Meager,  and  sunburned;  only  I  can  see 
That  thy  dear  face  pale  honey-color  is. 
The  violet  is  dark,  and  the  legend-bearing  iris, 
Yet  these  for  garlands  are  the  chosen  flowers. 

What  a  clod!  yet  could  sincerity  possi- 
bly be  better  expressed  ?  The  starved 
soul  in  the  hind  makes  the  absolute  sacri- 
fice of  love.  No  matter  what  men  say,  to 
him  the  emaciated,  bilious  wench  is  all 
that  imagination  can  paint   of   beauty. 

The  goat  goes  after  cytisus ;  the  wolf  is  fain 
To  catch  the  goat ;  behind  the  plow  the  crane 
Feeds  i'  the  furrow ;  but  I,  I  long  for  thee. 

Not  so  many  years  ago  I  was  at  a  wed- 
ding. The  groom  was  a 'sang-digger;  the 
bride  stood  up  barefoot  to  take  the  vows 
of  Hymen.  Evidently  the  twain  were 
rapturously   in   love. 

105 


H  ipoet  ot  tbe  iPoor 

Gentle  Bombyca,  like  carven  ivory- 
Are  thy  two  feet,  and  lulling  is  thy  voice ; 
But  thy  ways,  no  words  can  tell  of  them. 

Many  descriptive  passages  in  the  pas- 
torals fling  out  a  fine  reflection  of  what  is 
most  acceptable  to  the  taste  of  these  poor 
but  carelessly  happy  rustics  —  running 
water,  shady  slopes,  singing  cicadas,  gam- 
boling kids  and  calves,  and  always  the 
flute  and  the  wax-bound  syrinx,  with  Pan 
somewhere  near,  but  never  in  sight,  drows- 
ing in  his  cave.  The  god,  to  our  modern 
minds,  seems  the  one  conventional  figure ; 
but,  after  all,  the  day  and  the  hour  were 
his ;  he  was  a  reality  to  the  shepherds. 

Honey  and  cheese  are  the  titbits  rolled 
under  these  untaught  tongues.  *'  As  good 
as  licking  honey"  expresses  the  highest 
comparison;  but  then,  what  could  be 
better?  One  feels  the  nectar  from  the 
comb-cells  dripping  down  over  one's 
fingers.  Who  would  not  be  a  poor  hind 
at  such  a  golden  moment?  And  the 
amoebean  fluters — they  seem  to  me  the 
most  perfect  dream  of  rustic  boys  that 
ever  poet's  imagination  painted. 
1 06 


i 


H  poet  ot  tbe  poor 

I  have  followed  with  absolute  impatience 
the  labored  efforts  of  learned  dry-as-dusts 
to  reconstruct  the  bucolics  of  Theocritus. 
Here  are  these  fellows  wrangling,  guessing, 
suggesting,  rejecting,  contending,  strain- 
ing at  verbal  gnats,  and  dissecting  con- 
jectural substitutes  for  knotty  phrases, 
when,  in  fact,  the  pastorals  are  perfect. 
How  they  go  into  a  poor  man's  heart, 
those  old  echoes  of  the  Sicilian  mountain- 
sides and  of  the  vineyards  and  orchards 
of  Cos!  Even  that  much-mutilated  Idyl 
XXI  comes  to  me  sometimes  when  the 
cares  of  work  and  the  difficulties  of  life 
drive  away  sleep: 

Poverty,  Diophantes,  makes  art  leap  to  life ; 
Poverty  enforces  work ;  for  even  at  night 
The  toiler's  sleep  is  broken  by  his  cares, 
And  if  he  touch  the  outer  fringe  of  rest 
To-morrow's  task  will  rob  him  of  his  nap. 

I  can  Imagine  two  old  fishermen,  in  their 
rush-wattled  hut  by  the  seaside,  reading 
that  story  of  their  poor  lives.  I  have  been 
in  such  a  hut  on  an  island  of  the  Southern 
Gulf-coast,  and  have  slept  on  the  fisher- 
107 


H  ipoet  of  tbe  ipoor 

man's  bed  of  grass  or  moss,  have  tumbled 
on  a  better  couch,  between  the  lonesome 
hours,  thinking  of  what  might  be  done  to 
meet  the  merciless  demands  of  need. 

Two  old  fishermen  once  lay  and  slept 
Upon  a  bed  of  seaweed  in  their  hut, 
Whose  walls  were  wattled  grass;  and  all  about 
Were  scattered  there  the  tackle  of  their  craft, — 
A  toilsome  one,— rods,  creels  and  weels  and  Hnes, 
Hooks,  woven  fish-pots,  weed-entangled  nets, 
And  ropes  and  oars,  and  one  decrepit  boat. 
Under  their  heads,  for  pillow,  a  worn  mat 
Was  helped  out  by  their  clothing  and  their  caps. 
Poverty  stood  sentinel  at  their  shutterless  door, 
Nor  was  a  watch-dog  needed  for  such  wealth 
As  their  rough  toil  had  furnished  them  withal. 
Lonely  were  they,  they  knew  no  luxuries, 
And  ceaselessly  against  their  scanty  hut  . 
With  gentle  motion  rose  the  tireless  surf. 

My  translation  is  scant,  arid,  almost 
literal ;  and  yet  I  dare  say  that  the  reader 
unacquainted  with  the  old  tongue  will  feel 
the  spell  of  a  picture  so  true,  so  human,  so 
touching.  The  moon  is  not  yet  half-way 
across  heaven  when  the  tired  sleepers  stir 
and  begin  to  think  of  the  coming  day. 
One  of  them,  Asphalion,  grumbles: 
io8 


H  ipoet  of  tbe  ipoot 

They  do  but  lie,  partner,  the  folk  who  say 
That  when  the  summer  days  are  long  the  nights 
Are  short ;  for  I  have  dreamed  and  dreamed, 
And  yet  no  streak  of  morn  is  in  the  sky. 
How  is  't  ?    The  nights,  surely  they  must  be  long. 

Then  they  lie  there  and  chat,  and  this 
one  tells  his  dream — a  dream  of  gold,  which 
comes  in  the  form  of  a  fish,  only  to  leave 
him  more  forlorn  than  ever. 

This  idyl  is  an  extreme  example  of  those 
hopeless  poems  which  in  some  way  exhale 
comfort.  The  whole  list  of  pathetic  word- 
pictures  may  be  searched  through  in  vain 
for  another  so  brimming  with  reality  and 
yet  so  isolated  in  its  almost  weird  romance. 
Shakspere  at  his  best  never  surpassed  its 
naked  dramatic  skeleton,  nor  could  he 
have  clothed  its  bones  with  the  flesh  of  a 
sincerer  humanity.  Some  of  the  doctors 
say  that  Theocritus  did  not  write  it.  I 
think  that  he  lived  it.  In  the  art  of  set- 
ting up  an  isolated  figure,  self-sufficient 
and  unconscious  of  any  lack,  an  individual 
dramatic  creation,  Theocritus  stands 
master.  He  was  not  in  the  least  a 
playwright,  but  he  had  the  direct  and 
109 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

unerring  vision  which  discerns  the  foun- 
dation-lines of  specific  character.  If  I 
were  asked  to  select  from  the  literatures 
of  all  countries  and  of  all  ages  the  very 
best  dramatic  presentation  of  crude,  coarse, 
rustic  wit,  my  choice  would  certainly  be 
Idyl  V,  wherein  Comatas  and  Lacon  fling 
back  and  forth  between  them  their  back- 
handed, clownish  compliments.  The  piece 
opens  thus: 

Comatas. 

Keep  clear,  my  goats,  of  that  notorious  thief 
Lacon,  the  shepherd,  who  my  goatskin  stole. 

Lacon. 

Hi,  my  lambs,  run  quickly  from  the  spring ! 
That  Comatas,  don't  you  see  him  ?     He  who 

filched 
The  other  day  my  syrinx,  he  's  the  lark. 

Comatas. 

A  pipe,  indeed!    What  kind?    When  had  you 

one? 
You  underling,  you  slave  of  Sibyrtas ! 
When  did  you  quit  a  tooting  on  a  flute 
Of  straw-stems  cheap  with  little  Corydon  ? 

So  the  half  joking,  half  bitter  badinage 
proceeds  until  a  singing  match  is  proposed 
no 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

and  arranged.  When  this  contest  has  gone 
on  to  its  highest  in  a  strain  of  inimitable 
pastoral,  and  has  touched  a  point  where 
Lacon  seems  to  be  getting  the  better  of 
his  opponent,  suddenly  Comatas  drops 
back  from  his  tender  pitch  of  melody  to  a 
sneer  and  a  snarl : 

COMATAS. 

Perhaps  thou  dost  remember,  sir,  how  I 
Did  one  day  warm  thy  jacket  with  a  club, 
And  make  thee  twist  thy  face  and  squirm  and 

writhe. 
Hugging  the  body  of  yon  oak  the  while  ? 
Lacon. 

No ;  but  I  do  remember  mighty  well 
How  thou  wast  bound  there  by  Eumarides, 
Who  basted  thee  all  over,  up  and  down. 

Theocritus,  in  these  rustic  pictures,  set 
the  pace  not  only  for  all  future  character- 
sketching  in  his  particular  field,  but  for 
all  our  modern  dialect-writing.  The  best 
of  Mr.  Harris's  "  Uncle  Remus "  pieces 
are  Theocritean,  and  Riley's  delightful 
Hoosier  rhymes  belong  to  the  same 
genus.  Burns,  the  greatest  of  all  the 
modern  poets  of  the  poor,  was  conscious 
1 1 1 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

of  his  kinship  to  the  immortal  Syracusan. 
He  wrote  a  poem  "  On  Pastoral  "  in  which 
he  paid  this  tribute  to  his  master : 

But  thee,  Theocritus,  wha  matches? 

They  're  no  herd's  ballats,  Maro's  catches.    .    .    . 

Will  nane  the  shepherd's  whistle  mair 

Blaw  sweetly  in  its  native  air  ? 

None  of  the  pastoral  or  rustic  singers 
since  Theocritus  has  been  able  to  appear 
quite  so  complacently  at  home,  as  if  to  the 
manner  born,  nor  so  unconscious  of  being 
at  vulgar  work  while  making  this  plebeian 
song  as  was  he.  Our  modern  poets  of 
the  people  cannot  escape  the  air  of  stoop- 
ing, if  ever  so  graciously,  to  catch  the 
note. 

Jasmin  and  Burns  and  Hogg,  and  in 
some  respects  Ramsay,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  poets  great  and  small  who  have  es- 
sayed to  follow  more  literally  in  the  track 
of  Theocritus,  are  to  be  read,  not  as 
imitators  of  original  Doric  pastoral,  but 
as  the  modern  species  of  the  ancient  genus 
Bucolicus.  Our  American  eclogue-makers 
— Riley,  with  his  inimitable  dialect  fooling, 

112 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

which  shades  off  into  exquisite  pathos, 
tenderness,  and  sweetness ;  Harris,  with 
his  singular  certainty  of  touch  and  depth 
of  sympathy ;  Edwards,  with  his  happy 
impressionism  ;  and  Page,  with  his  charm- 
ing romance — have  opened  ways  of  their 
own. 

Tennyson's  idyls  are  nothing  if  not  of 
aristocratic  caste.  The  Laureate  fascinated 
all  classes,  but  he  never  was  a  poet  of  the 
poor.  Even  the  ''Miller's  Daughter" 
ranges  above  the  staff  of  poverty  and 
unconscious   simplicity. 

Theocritus  was,  in  spirit  if  not  in  fact,  a 
goatherd  himself.  It  was  his  own  nature 
that  cries  out: 

Sweet,  O  goatherd,  is  the  pine-tree's  sound 
Murmuring  beside  the  water-springs.  .  .  . 
Beside  cool  water  is  my  leafy  bed.    .    .    . 

His  was  the  simple  rustic  bloom  (GaXepdv) 
which  breathed  the  perfect  perfume  of  un- 
sophisticated poverty.  He  strayed  away 
sometimes  from  his  pastures,  his  caves,  his 
huts,  and  his  hinds,  to  court  the  favor  of 
the  rich ;  but  the  characteristic  charm,  the 
2  113 


H  poet  ot  tbe  poor 

inner  glow  of  his  genius,  the  rfiri  of  his 
Muse,  are  felt  only  in  his  bucolic  piping 
and  in  that  picture  of  absolute  poverty  in 
Idyl  XXI.  It  is  like  living  the  herdsman's 
life  along  the  sunny  mountain-slopes  to 
read  Idyl  VIII.  One  hears  the  flutes. 
Even  in  Idyl  VII,  where  Theocritus  be- 
gins to  put  on  a  student's  airs,  the  musk 
of  the  goats  is  still  blended  with  the  summer 
day's  opulence  and  flower  perfume,  fruit 
fragrance  and  the  must  of  grapes  and 
grain.  Indeed,  this  goat-musk  (xivdjjpa) 
and  the  suggestion  of  rude  cheese-pressers 
and  the  curd  and  rennet  ought  to  be  a 
passport  to  the  favor  of  modern  realists. 

The  little  song  at  the  end  of  Idyl  X  is 
a  fine  bit  of  rural  wit  and  irony.  I  have 
heard  the  like,  barring  the  inimitable  art 
of  hiding  art,  in  the  hay-fields  of  the  West, 
but,  of  course,  not  in  verse. 

Boys,  the  frog  's  a  lucky  fellow ;  he 

Don't  have  to  waste  his  wages  for  his  beer ; 

The  drink  he  likes  he  swims  in,  don't  ye  see ! 

I  have  been   going   through   these   old 
Doric  masterpieces  again   in  memory  of 
114 


H  poet  of  tbe  poor 

the  time  where  I  first  read  them  among 
the  airy  hills  of  Cherokee  Georgia.  There 
is  nothing  Doric  in  the  best  translations; 
you  must  go  to  the  original ;  and  to  many 
a  weary  soul  this  would  be  like  Riley's 

Going  back  to  Grigsby's  Station, 
Where  we  used  to  be  so  happy  and  so  pore. 


115 


Sbrihe*'1Rote0 

WITH    A    BUFFON    INTERLUDE 

BIRDS  are  no  respecters  of  persons, 
and  if  I  were  called  upon  to  pick 
out  the  most  independent  and  least  diplo- 
matic bird  of  them  all,  the  shrike  would 
be  first  choice  without  hesitation.  No 
matter  of  what  species,  it  is  the  shrike 
against  the  field,  at  any  odds.  He  is  a 
self-contained  little  fellow,  with  a  military 
air,  wearing  his  dress  uniform  in  an  un- 
varying mood  of  almost  stolid  complacence. 
An  Ishmaelite  of  the  strictest  breed,  he  tilts 
against  all  avian  comers  with  a  view  to 
murder  pure  and  simple. 

It  is  very  easy  to  generalize  about  birds, 

as  the  poets  and  many  of  the  ornithologists 

have  always  done.      But  when  one  tries  to 

get  at  the  details,  there   comes  the  rub. 

ii6 


Sbrtfte*=1Rote6 

From  Aristotle  down  to  Dr.  Coues,  science 
has  stroked  bird-feathers  the  wrong  way ; 
while  from  Pindar  along  the  singing  line 
to  Tennyson  poetry  never  has  been  able 
to  tell  the  whole  avian  truth.  There  was 
Buffon,  half  poet,  half  scientist,  and  tipped 
with  a  ray  of  philosophy,  who  first  made 
bird-literature  truly  delightful.  But  even 
he  depended  largely  upon  doubtful  facts 
and  vague  guesses  and  analogies  for  the 
finest  marrow  of  his  ornithological  essays. 
He  blundered  so  charmingly  about  birds 
that  when  he  was  at  his  worst  he  fairly 
glowed  with  fascination.  What  a  romance 
he  might  have  made  about  the  shrike,  had 
he  once  got  fairly  to  strumming  the  chord ! 
Somehow  he  slipped  it  lightly  by.  And 
why,  indeed,  do  I  mention  Buffon  here  ? 
Possibly  because,  when  I  went  to  him  for 
shrike-notes,  I  got  so  little,  and  yet  so 
much.  As  usual,  instead  of  turning  away, 
I  kept  on  reading  from  sketch  to  sketch — 
the  cuckoo,  the  starlings,  the  hawks — right 
on  and  on,  and  almost  forgot  my  shrike. 
Here  was  a  master  of  bird-talk ;  here  were 
notes  worth  reading,  whether  true  or  false 
117 


Sbrtfte^slPlotes 

— the  shrike  could  wait!  Volume  after 
volume  was  opened  and  browsed  through 
at  haphazard.  It  was  Hke  a  stroll  in  an 
ancient  and  variegated  wood  smelling  ol 
moldy  loam  and  damp,  flower-haunted 
stream-banks.  How  many  thousand  years 
ago  was  it  that  Buffon  flourished !  Surely 
his  tomes  are  as  old  as  Homer's.  The 
myth  about  corn-seeds  taken  from  the 
Egyptian  mummy-casket  and  growing 
when  planted  in  our  day  is  made  true  in 
Bufl"on's  case.  Out  of  his  mildewed  pages 
fall  spores  of  literary  life,  to  germinate, 
spring  up,  and  bloom  over  wide  areas  of 
modern  aridity  long  occupied  by  the  grim 
skeletons  of  science.  And  while  my  shrike 
sits  yonder  on  the  tipmost  spray  of  an 
orange-tree,  patiently,  nay  stolidly,  waiting 
for  me  to  have  my  fill  of  studying  him,  I 
shall  not  fail  to  give  the  old  naturalist  some 
meager  but  well-meant  instalments  of 
what  is  due   him. 

BuflFon's  name  is  no  longer  one  to  con- 
jure with  in   science,  and  those  there  be 
who  affect  to  make  fun  of  his  work;  but 
a  few  of  us  find  the  man  himself  one  of 
ii8 


our  pleasantest  book-acquaintances,  inter- 
esting for  the  very  reasons  given  by  the 
"scientists"  of  to-day  for  not  liking  him. 

For  my  part,  frankly,  I  dote  upon  him, 
because  he  liked  birds  in  a  sensible  and 
natural  way,  which  led  him  to  write  about 
them  with  enthusiasm  as  beings  of  beauty 
worthy  of  a  good  deal  of  poetry.  What- 
ever may  be  his  merits  or  demerits  as  a 
general  naturalist,  and  however  open  to 
criticism  this  or  that  dry-as-dust  specialist 
may  find  him,  I  select  from  his  works  the 
nine  volumes  devoted  to  birds,  and  ask 
nobody  for  advice  while  I  enjoy  them. 

The  comic  part  of  science  appears  when 
the  professor  of  our  day  trembles  at 
sight  of  a  well-turned  phrase.  An  Indian 
out  West  would  have  a  good  name  for 
Professor  Dry-as-Dust;  he  would  dub  him 
"  Old-Man-Afraid-of-his-  Imagination.*' 
As  for  Buffon,  he  was  a  well-rounded  man, 
both  physically  and  intellectually,  robust 
enough  to  be  independent,  and  natural 
enough  to  regard  his  imagination  with 
simple  favor.  Nor  did  the  poetry  in  him 
shorten  his  life ;  he  died  at  eighty-one, 
119 


and  not  then  of  old  age,  with  plenty  of 
flesh  on  his  bones. 

He  was,  indeed,  too  large  a  man  not  to 
have  enemies,  and,  of  course,  Voltaire  was 
one.  The  colossal  dyspeptic,  when  Buffon 
and  his  ** Natural  History  "  were  mentioned 
in  his  presence,  snarled :  "  Pas  si  natu- 
relle!"  and  thus  sounded  the  key-note  of 
ill-tempered  criticism.  The  reconciliation 
between  the  two  great  writers  suggests 
what  may  be  called  the  "  scratch  my  back 
and  I  '11  scratch  yours  "  method  now  so 
popular  with  schoolmen  in  science.  Buf- 
fon sent  Voltaire  a  fine  copy  of  **  L'His- 
toire  Naturelle,"  and  Voltaire  wrote  a  note 
of  acceptance  in  which  he  hinted  that  the 
donor  was  a  second  Archimedes ;  Buffon 
replied  that  there  never  would  be  a  Voltaire 
n,  and  then  both  were  as  happy  as  school- 
boys with  new  tops.  They  shook  hands 
across  the  chasm  of  self-admiration. 

The  nine  volumes  of  "  L'Histoire  Natu- 
relle"  devoted  to  birds  were  issued 
during  1770-83.  In  their  preparation 
Buffon  was  assisted  first  by  Gueneau  de 
Montbeliard,  and  then  by  the  Abbe 
120 


Sbrtfte^Botes 

Bexon,  neither  of  whom  has  ever  had 
due  credit  or  discredit,  owing  to  the 
shadow  of  their  great  master.  Dauben- 
ton,  who  had  been  employed  on  the  his- 
tory, quit  before  the  bird-volumes  were 
begun,  on  account,  it  is  said,  of  pique  at 
having  some  of  his  work  suppressed. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that 
Buffon's  genius  went  directly  into  all  of  the 
most  important  descriptive  articles  in  these 
nine  volumes,  as  well  as  into  the  various 
essays  (such  as  they  are)  on  classifica- 
tion, anatomy,  distribution  of  species, 
etc.  All  of  the  ornithological  leaders, 
so  to  call  them,  certainly  were  written 
by   him. 

To  me  there  is  no  more  charming  read- 
ing than  BuflFon's  ornithological  romancing 
when  he  lays  himself  out  to  be  at  once 
exhaustive  and  brilliant.  One  can  always 
rely  upon  his  imagination  and  his  style. 
Moreover,  he  knew  how  to  give  the  fra- 
grance of  fresh  discovery  to  nearly  every- 
thing, and  now,  after  a  hundred  years,  his 
pages  still  exhale  somewhat  of  their  first 
bouquet.      Critics   of    the   scientific   order 

121 


Sbrifte*1Flote6 

have — justly,  perhaps — rated  his  ornithol- 
ogy low;  but  where  is  the  carper  among 
them  who  can  escape  the  fascination  of  that 
which  clothes  and  animates  and  colors  his 
passages  of  mere  description  ? 

As  an  American,  one  might  be  captious 
enough  to  resent  certain  indignities  to  our 
birds.  For  example,  Buffon  insisted  upon 
classing  our  beautiful  httle  song-thrush, 
the  cat-bird,  with  the  fly-catchers ;  and  he 
compromised  with  Klein  (who  made  out 
that  our  flicker  was  a  cuckoo)  by  saying : 
*'  Celui-ci  semble  faire  une  espece  mo- 
yenne  entre  le  picet  le  coucou!"  Then 
he  trims  his  pen  and  adds:  "It  is  one 
more  example  of  those  links  which  nature 
everywhere  sets  between  her  productions." 
Catesby  was  responsible,  however,  for 
Buffon's  statement  to  the  effect  that  the 
golden-winged  woodpecker  did  not  climb 
tree-boles.  But  I  must  not  begin  this 
picking  of  flaws  in  my  old  friend's  work,  or 
I  shall  soon  be  like  all  the  rest.  Were 
Buffon  ahve  to-day,  I  should,  however, 
ask  him  to  let  me  laugh  my  fill  at  his 
expression    "  ce     pic     demicoucou."     A 

122 


SbriF?e*=1Flote6 

half-cuckoo  woodpecker  is  a  phrase  not  to 
be  scowled  at;  one  must  melt  before  it. 

I  know  of  nothing  in  bird-literature 
more  curiously  interesting  than  BufTon's 
essay  on  the  woodpecker  family.  It 
has  been  the  subject  of  much  perfectly 
proper  animadversion  on  account  of  its 
inaccuracies ;  but  with  all  due  allowance  in 
behalf  of  science,  it  is  a  charming  piece  of 
literary  art,  in  which  the  true  woodpecker 
character  is  set  forth  with  singular  power. 
Some  of  the  statements  touching  the  ex- 
igencies and  peculiarities  of  the  life  of  the 
bird  are  very  much  exaggerated  if  we  take 
them  as  of  general  application,  and  still 
more  if  we  apply  them  to  certain  species. 
There  are  woodpeckers,  however,  that  ap- 
pear to  fill  exactly  the  mold  of  Buffon's 
description  of  their  solitary,  laborious,  and 
stinted  Hves.  Our  American  hairy  wood- 
pecker has  a  very  hard  time  of  it  during 
winter  north  of  latitude  35°.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  sapsucker  when  the 
trees  freeze  up.  But  what  I  find  most 
enjoyable  in  this  particular  essay  is  the 
artistic  bouquet  of  it.  Buffon  had  prob- 
123 


ably  never  studied  the  woodpeckers  in 
their  native  haunts,  and  the  admirable 
cleverness  with  which  he  assimilated  the 
gist  of  what  travelers,  explorers,  natural- 
ists, and  romancers  had  published  on  the 
subject  stands  as  a  special  badge  of  his 
genius.  In  this  regard  he  was  like  Shak- 
spere,  a  great  robber  who  appropriated  the 
crude  materials  discovered  by  others  and 
worked  them  over  to  his  own  satisfaction. 
Although  he  affected  to  disdain  verse,  he 
was  essentially  a  poet,  and  let  no  oppor- 
tunity for  making  a  romantic  impression 
sHp  his  pen. 

To  this  day  Buffon's  description  of  the 
mocking-bird's  singing  is  better  than  that 
of  any  American  ornithologist,  so  far  as  I 
have  read.  He  had  never  heard  our  mar- 
velous mimic;  what  he  depended  upon 
was  found  in  the  various  crude  reports  of 
travelers  who  had  penetrated  our  Southern 
woods  and  the  field-notes  of  two  or  three 
amateur  naturalists  then  laying  the  ground- 
sills of  that  beautiful  structure  of  bird-lit- 
erature which  to-day  is  receiving  its  final 
decorations.  After  having  studied  the 
124 


mocking-bird  more  patiently  and  exhaus- 
tively, perhaps,  than  any  bird  was  ever 
before  studied,  I  can  now,  at  the  end  of 
twenty  years,  freely  say  that  BufTon's 
description  is  the  very  truest  character- 
sketch  that  our  king  of  song  has  ever 
been  the  subject  of.  It  was  a  long  way 
from  Buffon's  study  in  his  garden  at 
Monbart  to  a  Carolina  thorn-bush  or  haw- 
tree  in  which  the  moqueur  was  singing: 
but  the  great  naturalist's  genius  had  com- 
mand of  the  range  ;  his  imagination  grasped 
almost  every  detail  of  the  performance, 
even  to  a  strong  hint  of  the  rare  drop- 
ping-song,  which  has  been  missed  by  all 
of  our  native  ornithologists. 

Buffon's  chapter  on  the  kingfisher  is 
another  inimitable  piece  of  writing.  We 
find  strong  traces  of  it  in  all  the  halcyon 
Hterature  from  that  day  to  this;  but  if  any 
student  of  birds  would  like  a  sudden  vision 
of  the  difference  between  Buffon's  notion 
of  ornithology  and  the  present  exhaustive 
practice  of  specialism,  let  him  compare  the 
essay  just  mentioned  with  R.  B.  Sharpe's 
monograph  on  the  family  of  kingfishers, 
125 


Sbrtfte:*1Flotes 

wherein  are  crowded  with  automatic  pre- 
cision all  the  obtainable  specific  details. 
One  is  literature,  the  other  is  science. 
The   gap  between  them  is  ocean-wide. 

In  his  paper  on  the  heron  Buffon  is 
again  at  his  best — large,  learned,  a  master 
of  his  materials,  so  far  as  essay-writing 
can  go;  and  it  is  to  him  that  the  general 
reader  must  turn  to-day  for  the  best  com- 
prehensive review  of  the  old  writers  on  the 
subject.  Indeed,  we  look  in  vain  to  our 
encyclopedias  in  search  of  just  what  BufTon 
nearly  always  gives.  Wilson  and  Audu- 
bon followed  his  literary  method  (at  a 
distance)  in  their  bird-biographies;  but 
they  lacked  his  learning,  his  free  access  to 
large  libraries,  and  his  almost  unlimited 
correspondence  with  observers  the  world 
over.  He  knew  the  trick  of  selecting  and 
compressing  the  bits  of  interest  furnished 
by  all  his  sources  of  information,  and  then 
he  saturated  them  with  his  individuality 
of  style ;  for  he  demonstrated  with  ease 
the  truth  of  his  celebrated  phrase,  "  Le 
style  est  I'homme  meme." 

Coming  to  the  nightingale  in  the  due 
126 


course  of  his  work,  Buffon  evidently  felt 
that  he  must  do  his  best.  Here  was  a 
bird  upon  which  poets  from  the  most 
ancient  times  had  wreaked  themselves  in 
rhythmic  praises.  No  genius  had  ever 
been  too  great  to  admire  it  with  cordial 
enthusiasm.  From  Aristotle  on  down, 
philosopher,  historian,  and  bard  had  vied 
with  one  another  in  writing  about  it. 
Now  the  Intendant  du  Jardin  du  Roi  and 
member  of  I'Academie  Fran^aise  settled 
himself  to  outdo  them  all;  and  he  did 
outdo  them.  His  essay  is,  in  my  humble 
opinion,  the  best  unscientific  paper  ever 
written  upon  a  bird.  When  he  laid  down 
the  pen  there  was  not  much  left  for  others 
to  add  in  the  line  of  his  study. 

The  edition  of  Buffon  at  my  hand  is 
that  of  1827,  in  forty-two  volumes,  in- 
cluding the  twelve  by  Lacepede.  The 
illustrations  are  interesting  chiefly  as  re- 
minders of  the  long  advance  made  during 
the  past  sixty  or  eighty  years  in  the  art  of 
picturing  natural-history  subjects.  If  our 
descriptive  ornithologists  must  still  bow  to 
Buffon  as  a  master  of  style,  it  may  console 
127 


them  to  know  that  if  they  can  gain  a  place 
in  one  of  our  first-class  magazines  (I  do 
not  hint  that  they  can)  their  writings  will 
be  sure  of  infinitely  better  illustrations  than 
the  great  author  of  "  L'Histoire  Naturelle," 
with  a  king  to  back  him,  could  command. 
And,  after  all,  it  would  be  doing  injustice 
to  the  present  charming  school  of  Tho- 
reaus,  and  Burroughses,  and  Mrs.  Millers, 
and  Bradford  Torreys,  to  compare  them 
directly  with  Buffon,who  actually  imagined 
that  he  was  a  dry-as-dust  during  the  whole 
of  his  long  and  laborious  life.  He  was 
not  the  man  to  go  into  the  woods  and 
fields  and  around  the  Waldon  ponds,  spy- 
ing upon  the  birds  and  reporting  what  he 
saw,  and  so  he  missed  a  great  deal  of  per- 
sonal pleasure,  and  his  literature  has  very 
little  of  his  own  adventures  in  it.  The 
gain  was  in  masses  of  information  and 
large  dashes  of  enduring  color. 

But  yonder  still  sits  my  shrike  on  the  tip- 
top of  the  orange-tree,  a  sullen  expres- 
sion in  his  whole  bodily  pose.  He  is  all 
countenance,  and  it  is  the  countenance  of 
a  heavy-shouldered,  short-necked,  large- 
128 


headed  rascal  who  never  in  his  life  had  a 
qualm  of  conscience  on  account  of  his  base 
deeds.  His  sedentary  quiet  serves  him 
two  ways:  while  digesting  one  of  my 
greenlets  he  is  surveying  opportunities 
for  his  next  brutality.  With  my  glass  I 
take  leisurely  looks  at  him,  particularly 
noting  the  steadfast,  darkling  stare  of  his 
eye,  a  typically  predatory  orb. 

He  is  king  of  the  garden,  a  tyrant  rude 
and  sanguinary — killing,  now  for  food, 
and  then  for  fun,  hanging  his  victims  on 
the  spikes  of  the  trees  and  leaving  them 
to  dry  into  mummies  as  light  as  old 
leaves.  In  my  realistic  moments  I  credit 
him  with  much  good  done  in  impaling 
grasshoppers  and  young  mice,  moths,  and 
caterpillars  ;  but  most  of  the  time  he  passes 
in  my  imagination  for  nothing  but  a  Nero 
whose  whole  nature  is  a  puddle  of  blood- 
stained cruelty  never  stirred  by  a  breath 
of  tenderness  or  sympathy. 

The  shrike  is,   indeed,  a  bird   that  has 

caused  me  a  great  deal  of  pleasant  trouble. 

The  three,  or,  speaking  conservatively,  the 

two,  species  inhabiting  our  country  do  not 

9  129 


Sbrtfte*1Flote0 

greatly  differ  in  nature  and  habits,  while 
they  may  be  identified  at  a  glance,  even 
at  some  distance,  by  their  specific  exterior 
markings,  and  by  their  respective  sizes. 
Lajiitis  is  the  family  name  (in  English 
"the  butcher"),  an  ugly  adjective  quah- 
fying  a  beautiful  and  curiously  fascinating 
little  free-lance  in  the  world  of  wings,  where 
he  gaily  tilts  against  the  field. 

The  phrase  **  pleasant  trouble  "  comes 
so  near  to  expressing  the  half-success, 
half-disappointment  attendant  upon  every 
attempt  at  systematic  shrike-study  that  I 
shall  emphasize  it  by  repetition.  No  bird 
of  our  woods  and  fields  can  be  more  pleas- 
ing or  more  troublesome.  His  air  of  in- 
difference, amounting  almost  to  stupidity, 
is  a  constant  source  of  vexatious  surprises. 
You  trust  his  apparent  unconsciousness 
time  after  time,  in  the  face  of  treacheries 
over  which  you  have  vowed  never  again 
to  be  misled.  He  seems  possessed  of 
powers  all  but  uncanny  in  the  way  of 
playing  open  and  shut  with  himself.  Now 
you  see,  and  now  you  don't  see,  what  he 
is  up  to. 

130 


Last  winter  I  renewed  my  pursuit  of 
the  shrike  under  favorable  conditions. 
Both  varieties  of  the  smaller  species,  the 
loggerhead  proper  and  cxcubitorides,  were 
seen,  the  latter  appearing  to  be  more 
numerous  than  the  mocking-birds,  which 
they  very  strikingly  resemble  in  a  general 
way.  With  a  good  glass  the  markings 
distinguishing  the  two  {Itidoviciaims  and 
excubitorides)  may  be  made  out  quite  sat- 
isfactorily, especially  the  black  and  white 
about  the  eyes  and  on  the  tail-base.  One 
or  two  notes  of  observation  seem  to  me 
worth  preserving,  as  they  go  toward  dis- 
closing a  certain  resemblance  between  the 
character,  of  the  shrike  and  that  of  the 
sparrow-hawk. 

On  a  small  tract  of  wet  land,  in  which 
grew  here  and  there  a  stunted  live-oak 
tree,  I  saw  a  shrike  following  a  small  flock 
of  sparrows.  It  was  manoeuvering  to  take 
one  of  the  plump  little  fellows  unawares ; 
but  an  observer  not  well  acquainted  with 
its  nature  and  the  peculiarity  of  its  dis- 
position would  scarcely  have  suspected 
what  it  was  trying  to  do.  The  trees  were 
131 


Sbrtfte^lRotes 

not  only  stunted,  but  were  half  dead,  their 
stiff  branches  bare,  save  that  a  few  leaf- 
tufts  showed  in  places  and  some  beard-like 
wisps  of  Spanish  moss  clung  to  them.  On 
the  stiff,  spike-ended  dead  part  of  a  bough 
the  shrike,  when  I  first  saw  him,  was  sit- 
ting still,  quite  in  the  habitual  attitude  of 
a  sparrow-hawk,  while  the  sparrows  were 
fluttering  about  in  some  tall  rushes  and 
grass  on  the  margin  of  a  ditch.  Two  or 
three  minutes  later  he  dropped  nearly  to 
the  ground,  and  then  flew  swiftly,  close  to 
its  surface,  until  he  reached  another  perch 
within  a  few  yards  of  his  chosen  prey. 
From  this  new  point  of  observation  he 
took  a  quick  view  of  the  rushes  wherein 
the  sparrows  had  hidden  themselves ;  then 
he  flew  level  along  until  he  was  directly 
over  the  grassy  tangle,  and  there  hovered 
in  air  for  nearly  a  minute,  quite  stationary, 
his  wings  quivering  at  full  spread. 

A  raw,  stiff  breeze  was  blowing  from 
the  northwest,  but  its  force  did  not  appear 
to  trouble  the  shrike.  He  turned  pres- 
ently and  went  back  to  his  perch,  where 
he  stayed  a  long  while  motionless.  A 
132 


SbrtF?es=1Rote5 

sparrow  at  last  ventured  to  the  top  of  a 
tall  weed  or  rush  stem,  and  began  to  chirp. 
Another  and  another  appeared  here  and 
there.  But  the  shrike  sat  like  a  mounted 
specimen  until  they  began  to  feed  again. 
Suddenly,  then,  straight  and  swift  as  a 
shot,  he  cut  the  air  and  struck.  I  heard 
a  cry  of  agony,  a  pinched  and  bitter 
squeak,  and  saw  the  little  butcher  bearing 
away  a  sparrow  weakly  struggling  in  his 
claws.  Many  a  time  before  this  I  had 
seen  the  like,  so  far  as  the  main  incident 
went;  but  the  act  of  hovering  in  mid-air 
over  its  quarry,  as  the  sparrow-hawk  does, 
was  novel  and  interesting. 

Another  curious  fact  of  which  I  made 
a  note  was  seeing  a  shrike  take  in  its  claws 
a  large  brown  butterfly  while  on  the  wing 
high  in  air.  It  would  not  have  been  so 
strange  had  the  bird's  beak  been  used 
instead  of  its  foot.  I  saw  the  little  tra- 
gedy from  beginning  to  end.  The  butter- 
fly was  making  one  of  those  apparently 
aimless  flights,  zigzagging  with  erratic, 
jerky  wing-strokes  about  fifteen  feet  above 
ground.  Just  as  it  passed  the  top  of  a 
133 


Sbrihe^motes 

yaupon-tree,  out  flew  a  shrike,  and  made 
a  dash  at  it,  but  missed  it.  Then  began 
a  fine  exhibition  of  aerial  gymnastics,  bird 
and  butterfly  tumbling  about,  at  first  so 
rapidly  that  I  could  scarcely  keep  an  eye 
on  them.  In  the  end,  however,  the  in- 
evitable death  came.  One  of  the  shrike's 
feet  gripped  the  insect  with  an  upward 
stroke,  while  the  bird  was  flying  back- 
downward  and  under  its  shining  prey!  I 
have  seen  a  hawk  at  twilight  catch  a  bat 
by  precisely  the  same  manceuver. 

Shrikes  were  building  their  nests  in 
the  yaupon-trees  as  early  as  the  9th  of 
March.  I  tried  to  find  out  whether  or 
not  they  ever  carried  the  sticks  for  their 
nests  in  their  claws ;  but  they  were  refrac- 
tory :  not  a  touch  of  work  would  they  do 
while  I  was  spying  on  them.  Indeed, 
even  in  my  absence  the  building  that  I  had 
under  special  observation  went  on  very 
slowly.  For  two  or  three  days  together 
no  appreciable  progress  was  made,  and  on 
the  22d  of  March  it  was  scarcely  half 
completed,  only  the  wide,  loose  foundation 
having  been  laid  in  the  thorny  crotch. 
134 


Sbrtfte^inotcs 

It  may  be  of  interest  if  I  describe  a 
shrike  just  received  from  Japan.  The 
friend  who  sent  it  (a  mounted  specimen) 
trusted  it  to  a  paper  box  by  the  post,  and 
when  it  arrived  its  shape  and  plumage  had 
been  somewhat  set  awry;  but  the  close 
resemblance  to  our  Louisiana  shrike  {hi- 
doviciaims)  is  surprising.  The  Japanese 
bird  may  be  a  trifle  smaller  than  ours,  and 
its  colors  are  less  bright.  The  black  stripe 
on  either  side  of  its  head  passes  across  the 
eye  (without  the  white  dots  or  borderings 
that  distinguish  our  sentinel  shrike)  and 
ends  at  the  base  of  the  upper  mandible. 
The  white  of  its  lower  body  is  not  pure, 
being  tinged  irregularly  with  pale  rust- 
brown,  which  becomes  evener  and  heavier 
on  the  sides  below  the  wings,  running  as 
far  back  as  nearly  to  the  root  of  the  tail. 

The  specimen,  looked  at  fifty  feet  away, 
could  scarcely  be  distinguished  from  the 
loggerhead;  but  nearer  inspection  shows, 
besides  the  differences  already  mentioned, 
that  its  breast  is  closely  and  evenly  marked 
with  dim,  wavy  brown  lines,  and  its  chin 
and  throat  have  a  dusky  shadow  vaguely 
135 


SbrlF?e=1Flotes 

obscuring  the  white.  My  friend,  in  a  note 
accompanying  the  specimen,  says  that  the 
Japanese  shrike  has  much  the  same  habits 
as  ours,  but  he  gives  no  particulars. 

In  the  scuppernong-vineyards  and  pear- 
orchards  of  the  Gulf-coast,  shrikes  and 
mocking-birds  live  together  apparently  on 
right  easy  terms.  At  nesting-time,  how- 
ever, the  mockers  drive  the  shrikes  away 
when  they  come  too  near  their  chosen 
building-places.  Doubtless,  our  little 
butcher  sometimes  dines  upon  a  fledgling 
songster  when  the  parent  birds  are  absent 
in  search  of  food.  I  have  known  it  to  kill 
young  ones  in  a  cage  that  hung  out  of 
doors,  and  this — as  I  have  told  in  another 
paper — is  the  foundation  of  the  belief  that 
mocking-birds  feed  their  young  poison 
worms  to  kill  them  when  in  captivity. 
The  shrike  is  the  real  culprit,  and  is  mis- 
taken for  the  mocker,  which  it  so  closely 
resembles  in  size  and  markings. 

Not  long  ago  I  saw  it  stated  that  some 
peculiarly  fortunate  naturalist  had  been 
hearing  a  shrike  sing ;  and  a  New  England 
woman  wrote  me  that  she,   too,   had  lis- 

136 


Sbrihe^naotes 

tened  with  delight  to  a  fine  burst  of  joy- 
ous twittering  from  the  butcher's  throat. 
Upon  MacGilHvray's  theory  of  the  pro- 
duction of  bird-song  there  is  a  sound  basis 
for  beheving  that  a  shrike  is  capable  of 
making  good  music ;  but  I  have  no  faith 
in  that  theory,  Huxley  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding.  The  singing  shrike  was 
really  a  mocking-bird  that  had  strayed  far 
northward ;  and  it  did  not  sing  with  a  tiny 
valve  far  down  in  Its  windpipe — it  did  not 
sing  at  all,  but  whistled,  just  as  a  boy 
whistles,  only  its  glottis  served  instead  of 
puckered  lips.  The  song-bird  has  no 
vocal  cord;  the  little  membranous  valve 
described  by  MacGillivray  modifies  the 
avian  voice,  but  it  does  not  make  the 
sound. 

But  here  again  is  the  bone-yard  of  the 
scientists,  where  walk  the  ghosts  that  will 
pounce  upon  those  famous  dissecters  of 
bird-song  organs  as  soon  as  they  have  paid 
Charon  his  ferry  money.  I  am  guilty  to 
a  degree,  and  must  in  turn  take  my  pun- 
ishment. Just  now,  however,  I  shall  steer 
wide  of  any  discussion  likely  to  aggravate 
137 


Sbrtfte^'IFlotes 

my  doom.  The  wind  is  sou'-sou'east, 
with  a  hint  of  orange-bloom  fragrance  on 
its  wing-tips — a  Caribbean  wind  which 
blows  in  the  northward-going  migrants. 
Now  is  the  time  for  my  shrike  to  show  his 
mettle.  The  season  of  sport  opens  for  him 
when  a  tide  of  gaily  painted  singers  and 
twitterers  breaks  upon  the  Gulf-coast.  He 
harries  every  animated  feather-ball  within 
eye-shot,  but  in  fact  kills  few.  In  the 
ecstasy  of  his  diabolical  fun  he  even  finds 
his  voice  with  a  short  cry  very  far  from 
musical.  A  day  or  two,  possibly  a  week, 
he  rages  in  his  own  quiet  way,  if  I  may 
so  state  it — and  then,  after  impaling  a  few 
tiny  innocents  on  the  orange-tree  spikes, 
he  again  settles  down  to  his  ordinary  show 
of  inscrutable  stolidity. 

Were  I  a  poet  the  shrike  should  have 
an  ode  to  celebrate  its  peculiarities,  an  ode 
as  remarkable  as  Shelley's  on  the  skylark. 
I  would  rhyme  a  word- melody  telling  all 
about  how  he  killed  my  baby  chameleons 
and  worried  my  mocking-birds  while  they 
were  rearing  their  early  brood.  Of  course 
I  could  not  rhapsodize  over  the  song  he 

138 


never  sang,  but  I  could  honestly  expand 
upon  his  beauty ;  for  he  is  both  fair  and 
beautiful  from  tip  to  toe — 

Hie,  et 
Candidus  et  talos  a  vertice  pulcher  ad  imos. 

Terrible  as  he  is  among  the  delicate, 
undersized  songsters,  he  is  one  of  the  fine 
notes  of  force,  form,  and  color  in  all  our 
fields  and  woods.  Human  history  owes 
much  to  Nero  ;  even  the  poets  have  thrived 
upon  his  record;  the  shrike  should  have 
been  named  nerornithos. 


139 


Zbc  Zonch  of  flnapiration 

THE  art  of  describing  things  with  the 
utmost  economy  of  words  and  at  the 
same  time  with  absolute  picturesqueness 
of  effect  is  nearly  always  exhibited  as  if  by 
accident.  The  poets  have  a  way  of  sur- 
prising us  with  these  unexpected  flashes 
of  success  in  reproducing  the  most  strik- 
ing phenomena  of  nature.     The  words, 

Ragged  rims  of  thunder  brooding  low, 
With  shadow-streaks  of  rain, 

bring  up  in  the  imagination  a  perfect 
sketch  of  a  thunder-shower  on  the  horizon. 
One  feels  the  cool,  damp  wind-puffs  from 
the  distant  cloud,  and  sees  the  slanting 
films  trailing  on  the  dim  hills.  There  is  a 
mellow  sound  of  disturbed  elements  and 
throbbing  storm-troubles  in  the  phras- 
140 


Zbc  Uoixcb  of  irnsptratton 

ing.  Tennyson  often  makes  these  aerial 
sketches,  as  if  with  a  single  twirl  of 
the  pen.  He  paints  us  a  great  thunder- 
cloud  that 

Topples  round  the  dreary  west, 

A  looming  bastion  fringed  with  fire. 

In  this  instance  the  effect  is  as  complete 
and  immediate  as  if  it  had  not  been  pro- 
duced by  comparison ;  for  instantly  we 
recall  by  direct  retrospection  the  great 
lunettes  and  curtains  of  the  aerial  forts  we 
watched  when  a  child,  and  remember  how 
at  regular  intervals  the  whole  structure 
toppled  strangely  as  the  lightning  filled  it, 
and  the  sun,  already  down,  burned  its  edges. 
From  my  winter  place  on  the  Gulf-coast 
I  have  often  seen  immense  dark  cloud- 
fortifications  rise  along  the  horizon,  be- 
tween the  blue  sky  and  the  green-blue 
water.  Presently  the  moon  would  appear, 
to  heat  the  parapets  to  a  silver  glow,  in- 
tense as  white  flame  from  a  blow-pipe. 

When    Keats,    in    his    pathetic    thirst, 
longed  for  a  beaker  of  the  warm  South, 
141 


Zbc  XToucb  of  Ifnspiratton 

With  beaded  bubbles  winking  at  the  brim, 
And  purple-stained  mouth, 

he  had  absolute  vision  of  his  subject.  The 
description  is  marvelously  accurate,  with 
the  added  wonder  of  inexpressible  sugges- 
tion. What  color  in  that  draught !  What 
alluring  bouquet!  What  iridescence  in 
those  magic  bubbles! 

Sometimes  the  phrases  used  in  these 
happy  moments  are  descriptive  of  things 
we  all  have  imagined  but  have  never  seen. 
D.  G.  Rossetti,  in  his  superbly  beautiful 
**  Blessed  Damozel,"  strikes  into  view,  as 
with  a  calcium-flash,  a  vision  of  souls  as- 
cending to  heaven.  They  are  compared 
to  "  thin  flames,"  and  what  other  phrase 
could  be  used  with  such  effect?  Again, 
in  the  same  poem,  a  perfectly  human  ele- 
ment is  made  to  relieve  an  access  of 
extreme  artificiality  by  the  sudden  state- 
ment of  the  fact  that  the  homesick  girl's 
bosom  seemed  to  make 

The  bar  she  leaned  on  warm. 

Immediately  the  description  is  complete, 

and  we  feel  the  circuit  of  sympathy   fill 

142 


Uhc  TToucb  of  ITnsptration 

with  the  current  of  absolute  hfe  and  glow 
with  tender  fervor. 

I  have  often  quoted  from  Emerson  the 
verses : 

Aloft  in  secret  veins  of  air 

Blows  the  sweet  breath  of  song. 

Who  has  not  heard  that  breath  wander- 
ing overhead  on  a  drowsy  summer  day? 
It  is  not  a  strain  for  the  physical  ear, — the 
realist  never  catches  it, — but  it  steals  into 
the  soul  and  masters  it  like  music  in  a 
dream.  Then,  there  is  a  line  dropped  by 
Mr.  Howells  in  his  youthful  days ;  it  is  a 
perfect  picture  of  young  maple-leaves 
when  they  are  upturned  by  a  frisky 
springtime  wind.  He  sings  of  them  as 
being 

Blown  silver  in  the  breeze. 

Mr.  Lowell's  inquiry, 

Oh,  what  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June? 

retains  its  fragrant  suggestiveness  de- 
spite the  badly  rhymed  college  response : 

Boarding-house  beef  called  "underdone." 
143 


Ubc  Uoxxcb  ot  flnsptratlon 

It  was  Shelley,  I  believe,  who  wrote  the 
striking  lines : 

Hell  is  a  city  much  like  London, 
A  populous  and  a  smoky  city. 

To  my  mind,  the  idea  of  genius  has  been 
never  better  expressed  than  by  Coleridge's 
verses : 

He  has  fed  on  honey-dew, 

And  drunk  the  milk  of  Paradise, 

from  which  we  catch,  by  instantaneous 
understanding,  the  whole  secret  of  the 
very  miracle  by  which  such  substances  as 
make  poets'  visions  are  assimilated  and 
redistilled  to  the  uttermost  subtlety  of 
meaning. 

When  old  Chaucer  says  : 

Thann  longen  folk  to  gone  on  pilgrimages, 

he  fixes  forever  one  of  the  most  delicate, 
elusive,  and  universal  of  human  moods ;  it 
is  the  mood  of  balmy  spring,  when  the 
far-away  and  the  vague  are  calling  us  into 
the  purple  mists  just  over  the  horizon. 
144 


Ubc  XToucb  ot  ITnsptratton 

Oftentimes  the  poet,  by  some  almost 
inexplicable  process,  conjures  up  an  ex- 
pression which  literally  means  nothing, 
and  yet  bears  in  it,  as  a  mirror  might, 
the  reflection  of  something  strangely  rich 
in  meaning.     For  example,  Villon's  verse : 

Ou  sont  les  neiges  d'antan? 

SO  perfectly  translated  by  Rossetti : 

Where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year? 

Baudelaire  sings  of  the  warm  waves  of 
the  Southern  seas  as 

Infinite  cradlings  of  fragrant  idleness. 

When  Burns  says  to  the  birds : 

Ye  mind  me  o*  departed  joys, 
Departed  never  to  return, 

his  vision  of  human  sadness  is  as  direct 
and  as  immediate  as  Shakspere's  ever  was 
at  its  highest  dramatic  reach. 

By  what  trick  is  it  that  Cowper  needs 
to  go  no  further  than 

Oh,  for  a  lodge  in  some  vast  wilderness ! 
145 


Ube  XToucb  of  IFnsptratton 

to  show  us  the  wilderness  itself  and  the 
identical  lodge?  His  wish  goes  in  upon 
our  imagination  and  calls  up  the  universal 
longing.  We  have  seen  the  wilderness 
before ;  we  have  helped,  long  ago,  to  build 
that  cabin.  The  poet  has  dipped  his  pen 
in  our  heart,  and  has  written  with  the  color 
of  our  dreams.  Each  one  of  us  has  his 
special  wilderness,  his  ideal  lodge  amid 
the   solitude. 

Swinburne,  the  most  musical  of  con- 
temporary poets,  is  a  master  of  surprise. 
He  passes  from  the  supremely  artificial  to 
the  simply  natural  with  a  suddenness  and 
completeness  that  fairly  captivate  the  ima- 
gination.    Examine  the  two  lines  : 

Where  tides  of  grass  break  into  foam  of  flowers, 
Or  where  the  wind's  feet  shine  along  the  sea. 

The  upper  verse  is  a  type  specimen  of 
deliberately  thought  out  and  finely 
wrought  conceit ;  the  lower  comes  into 
the  mind  and  the  soul  like  an  unexpected 
glimpse  of  a  breezy  ocean  rolling  its  white- 
capped  waves  far  and  free.  How  different 
146 


XTbe  xroucb  ot  IFnsptratton 

and  how  affected  in  comparison  appears 
the  famihar  description  of  the  wave  that 

Caught  a  star  in  its  embrace, 
And  held  it  trembling  there ! 

The  true  descriptive  maximum  seems 
to  be  an  overflow — the  effect  of  excessive 
momentum.  The  imagination  overreaches 
the  expected  and  touches  some  chord  of 
truth  supernally  beautiful  or  surprisingly- 
suggestive,  by  a  sort  of  accident  due 
to  a  spurt  of  energy  spontaneous  and 
irresistible. 

The  dramatic  surprise  is  quite  different 
from  the  lyrical.  Its  play  is  in  the  field 
of  human  action,  where  motive  flashes 
through  the  substance  of  thought  like 
electricity  in  steel.  The  great  play- 
wrights know  the  pulse  of  the  world,  and 
how  to  make  it  leap  or  stop  with  the  power 
of  but  five  words.  The  born  actor  is  he 
who  knows  by  intuition  where  to  find  these 
lucky  reaches  of  expression.  The  deca- 
dence of  the  novel  since  1870  is  largely 
due  to  the  neglect  of  dramatic  and  descrip- 
tive surprise.  Compare  one  of  Dumas's 
147 


Ube  TLoncb  ot  irnsptration 

best  romances  with  the  best  recent  analyti- 
cal novel,  and  there  will  be  no  escape  from 
regret.  That  Dumas's  style  has  been  sur- 
passed by  recent  writers  cannot  be  denied ; 
that  his  stories  occupy  too  much  space 
goes  without  the  saying:  but  he  was  not 
ashamed  of  his  imagination.  We  shall 
have  no  more  good  novels  till  the  Scotts 
and  the  Dumases  return  to  us.  They 
must  return,  however,  fully  abreast  of  the 
time,  and  able  to  take  in  the  meaning  of 
the  later  civilization. 

The  poets  have  dwindled,  too,  under  the 
pressure  of  materialistic  realism.  We  shall 
not  see  much  truly  great  poetry  so  long 
as  the  dramatists  and  the  lyrists  restrain 
their  imaginations.  Realism  has  never 
produced  one  permanent  drama,  one  im- 
mortal novel,  or  one  enduring  lyric. 


148 


H  ITDarsb^'lanb  Unclbent 

A  SCHOONER,  listing  sharply  to  a  fra- 
grant breeze,  gives  me  the  motion 
that  I  best  like,  when  I  stand  well  for- 
ward, feeling  the  kiss  of  chill  spray  over 
the  bow.  The  delight  is  emphatic  after 
a  long  rain  (alternating  shower  and  fog), 
during  which  nothing  better  than  a  swarm 
of  mosquitos  has  offered  relief  from  the 
lifeless  monotony  of  a  breathless  sea.  In- 
deed, it  was  like  magic  when  I  awoke  and 
felt  the  swell  under  me.  I  sat  up  in  my 
little  musty  bunk,  rubbing  my  eyes,  then 
hurried  on  with  my  clothes.  No  sooner 
was  my  head  above  deck,  as  I  mounted 
the  narrow  ladder,  than  I  smelled  as  well 
as  felt  the  weather's  change.  Half  the  sky 
was  already  clear;  the  breeze  had  the  fog 
going,  while  our  little  schooner  flew  after 
it  like  a  bird. 

149 


H  /IDarsb*lanb  IFnctbent 

Two  swarthy,  wrinkled  sailors  were 
mopping  the  deck,  one  of  them  whistling 
contentedly  a  lugubrious  tune,  so  his  looks 
suggested,  while  the  other  grumbled  in 
mongrel  patois.  Right  ahead  of  us,  under 
the  lifting  fog,  I  saw  a  marsh,  beyond 
which  a  forest  of  live-oaks  was  dimly 
outlined.  As  my  skipper  had  told  me 
that  we  were  off  the  west  shore  of  Borgne, 
I  at  once  recognized  the  place,  and  gave 
orders  that  the  schooner  should  be  sailed 
into  a  bight  at  the  mouth  of  a  little  bayou 
coming  through  the  marsh  from  the  dis- 
tant hummock-lands.  In  fact,  we  sailed 
up  the  bayou  for  a  mile  or  more,  and  lay 
to,  the  men  lowering  a  boat  in  which  I 
was  to  be  rowed  to  the  live-oaks. 

It  was  interesting  to  observe  the  silent, 
almost  stupid  curiosity  with  which  the  old 
water-dogs  furtively  gazed  at  my  archery 
tackle ;  but  they  asked  no  questions,  lean- 
ing to  their  oars  vigorously.  The  bayou 
narrowed,  as  we  ascended  its  winding 
water,  until  there  was  in  places  scant 
room  for  a  full  sweep  of  the  oars.  Two 
or  three  marsh- hens  showed  themselves 
150 


H  /IDarsb^lan^  IFnctbent 

for  a  moment  on  the  mud  at  the  edge  of 
the  stream,  then  darted  into  the  tall  grass. 
Gulls  flew  overhead,  their  wings  shining 
like    snow   against   the    blue    sky. 

The  prospect  of  a  whole  day  alone  in 
the  wood  toward  which  I  was  going  by 
a  flight  so  lively  made  my  blood  tingle; 
and  when  at  last,  an  hour  after  sunrise,  I 
stood  on  shore,  waving  good  speed  to  the 
returning  boat,  I  was  as  happy  as  any 
bird.  In  the  distance  lay  the  schooner, 
as  if  on  the  marsh  itself,  her  wide  sails 
curling  gently.  Behind  me,  less  than  a 
bow-shot  away,  the  oak-foliage  and  the 
gray-green  moss  twinkled  in  the  breeze. 
I  heard  bird-voices,  a  red-cockaded  wood- 
pecker's most  distinctly,  in  the  first  fringe 
of  the  wood. 

Swinging  my  bag  of  luncheon  over  my 
shoulder,  and  making  sure  that  I  had  all  of 
my  tackle,  I  went  splashing  through  a  bit 
of  rushy  marsh  direct  to  the  nearest  trees, 
where  there  was  a  little  bluff  marking  the 
hummock's  limit.  Pretty  soon  I  hung  the 
luncheon-bag  on  a  bough  and  marked  the 
place.  The  breeze  here  was  strong  enough 
151 


H  /IDar5b*lanb  Ifnctbent 

to  make  way  with  all  of  the  gnats  and 
mosquitos  in  the  open  parts  of  the  wood, 
and  the  magnificent  wide-armed  live-oaks 
and  water-oaks  looked  like  immense  apple- 
trees — an  orchard  of  the  gods. 

I  stood  still,  looking  all  around.  But 
what  had  become  of  the  birds  heard 
awhile  ago?  Not  a  sound  could  I  hear, 
save  the  multitudinous  rustlings  of  the 
wind.  No  wing-shine  flashed  across  the 
aisles.  The  impression  of  solitude  was  per- 
fect. Of  course,  I  had  not  expected  to 
find  a  swarming  wood  in  midwinter;  but 
I  well  knew  that  this  utter  silence  and 
stillness  could  not  last;  so  I  strolled  on 
deeper  into  the  shadows,  and  the  first  sign 
of  animal  life  to  attract  my  attention  was 
a  tiny  brown  creeper  going  spirally  up  a 
big  tree,  amid  the  lichens  and  ferns.  I 
stopped  to  make  a  note  of  this,  according 
to  habit;  and  while  I  was  putting  away 
my  book  and  pencil  a  large  bird  flew 
along  close  to  me  and  lit  on  a  branch  not 
twenty  yards  distant,  but  amid  the  leaves 
and  moss,  so  that  I  could  not  see  it. 
From  the  merest  glimpse,  as  it  went  by,  I 
152 


H  /IDarsb=lanD  UnctDent 

supposed  it  to  be  some  species  of  hawk. 
To  ascertain  I  drove  an  arrow  to  the  spot, 
guessing  at  the  proper  place.  It  clipped 
keenly  through  the  tangle,  with  a  whack 
upon  a  tree-bole  beyond,  and  out  rushed 
the  bird,  which  proved  to  be  a  golden- 
winged  woodpecker. 

My  arrow's  stroke  seemed  to  shock  the 
whole  wood  suddenly  into  life.  I  saw  a 
dozen  birds  in  the  next  ten  seconds :  blue 
jays,  woodpeckers,  a  mocking-bird,  and 
several  small  species  that  I  could  not 
identify.  Upon  all  of  these  I  used  my 
field-glass,  not  my  bow.  It  was  not  the 
season  of  song,  but  many  voices  chirped 
and  whistled  cheerily  as  I  passed  slowly 
and  noiselessly  along.  What  I  most 
wished  to  come  upon  was  one  of  the 
small  deer  said  to  abound  in  the  place. 
But  this  was  not  to  be ;  nor  did  I  find  any 
game  larger  than  a  woodcock  during  the 
day.  The  event  which  made  my  tramp 
worth  special  record  (wherefore  this  paper) 
began  after  I  had  walked  entirely  through 
the  wood  and  emerged  upon  a  marsh- 
prairie,  covered  with  low  grass  in  the 
153 


H  /iDarsb^lanD  IFnct^ent 

main,  but  dotted  irregularly  with  tufts  or 
tussocks  of  high  weeds  and  rush-like  plants 
— a  plashy  area  half  covered  with  water. 

I  had  stretched  myself  on  a  big  log  to 
rest,  my  back  to  the  wood,  my  face  to  the 
marsh  and  the  sea  beyond,  and  had  lain 
thus  for  half  an  hour,  when  a  small  object 
moving  slyly  at  the  edge  of  a  tussock 
caught  my  eye.  A  peculiar  satiny  gleam 
betrayed  it,  and  then  I  saw  the  form  of  a 
heron.  Out  came  my  field-glass,  and  in  a 
moment  a  beautiful  egret  was  stalking  appa- 
rently almost  under  my  nose.  It  was  the 
Louisiana  egret,  a  rare  bird  now,  so  many 
have  been  killed  for  their  beautiful  plumes. 
Of  course  it  was  not  in  full  feather;  but 
it  was  lovely  even  without  its  fine  purple 
trail,  and  every  movement  displayed  a  tint 
of  color  exquisitely  delicate.  I  saw  that 
it  was  feeding  upon  what  it  got  by  stab- 
bing the  mud  with  its  bill,  probably  some 
kind  of  grub  or  marsh  insect.  Its  eyes 
flashed  with  a  reddish  light  and  had  a 
singularly  cruel  expression.  The  purple 
of  its  neck-feathers  and  crest  shimm.ered 
softly  in  the  sunlight. 
I.S4 


a  /IDar6b=*lant)  Ifnct^ent 

While  I  was  looking  the  bird  suddenly 
quit  eating,  crouched  in  a  frightened  way, 
then  skulked  into  the  tall  growth  of  the 
tussock.  After  half  an  hour  had  elapsed, 
and  while  I  was  writing  in  my  note-book, 
it  reappeared  and  stood  with  its  neck 
stretched  almost  perpendicularly  to  its 
full  length.  I  watched  it  for  a  long  time 
before  it  moved  in  the  slightest,  then  it  re- 
sumed its  feeding.  It  was  uneasy,  however, 
and  I  noticed  that  it  frequently  gazed  up- 
ward as  if  half  expecting  some  calamity  from 
on  high.  I  looked  to  the  sky  for  a  sign  of 
danger,  for  I  thought  that  a  hawk  might 
be  circling  overhead ;  but  all  was  clear. 

A  few  minutes  later  the  heron  suddenly 
flattened  itself  upon  the  mud,  its  wings 
slightly  spread,  its  neck  drawn  close  to  its 
body,  and  at  the  same  time  a  peculiar 
noise,  a  low,  whizzing  roar,  fell  from 
above.  I  glanced  up,  and  at  first  saw 
nothing;  but  the  sound  rapidly  increased, 
and  then  I  caught  sight  of  a  large  hawk 
rushing  almost  vertically  down.  It  was 
still  very  high ;  its  wings  were  almost 
close  shut,  and  its  velocity  was  doubling 
155 


H  /lDarsb*lanb  Unctbent 

momently.  As  it  neared  the  ground  I 
could  scarcely  follow  its  movement  with 
my  eyes ;  but  I  saw  that  it  was  not  swoop- 
ing upon  the  heron.  What  it  did  strike 
was  a  meadow-lark,  a  hundred  yards 
farther  away  from  me,  which  it  bore  off 
to  the  woods. 

As  for  the  heron,  it  lay  quite  motionless 
for  a  long  time,  evidently  in  a  very  trance 
of  terror.  I  observed  it  closely  with  my 
glass,  and  do  not  think  a  single  feather  on 
it  stirred.  Indeed,  the  bird  lay  there  as  if 
dead,  save  that  its  cruel  red  eyes  burned 
like  live  coals.  After  a  while  I  tried  a 
shot  at  it.  The  arrow  fell  about  a  foot 
short,  but  flung  mud  all  over  the  sheeny 
plumage  of  the  heron's  back  and  neck. 
That  was  too  much ;  the  trance  was 
broken,  and  away  flew  the  beautiful 
thing  far   across   the   marsh. 

When  I  went  to  recover  my  shaft,  some 
snipe  flashed  swiftly  out  of  the  grass,  with 
their  rasping  cry :  ''Scaipe!  scaipe!"  I 
marked  them  down  and  followed;  but 
they  would  not  lie  until  I  got  near 
enough  for  a  shot;  so  I  returned  to  the 
156 


a  /iDarsb^lanb  1[nct^ent 

wood's  edge,  where  now  the  birds  of  song 
were  noisy,  piping  each  in  his  own  key. 
Luck  a  few  minutes  later  gave  me  a  great 
opportunity,  as  I  find  it  recorded  in  a 
weather-stained  note-book  to  which  I  con- 
fided much  more  than  mere  entries  of 
shots  and  their  results,  and  maybe  the 
flavor  of  an  archer's  log  will  not  be  bad. 
At  a  venture  I  will  transcribe  a  page : 

Had  crept  for  some  distance  under  cover  of  a 
magnolia-bush,—  trying  to  approach  a  log-cock,— 
when  by  some  chance  an  indirect  ray  of  vision 
fell  upon  a  much  larger  bird  standing  in  the  oozy 
mud  beside  a  little  black  puddle.  It  was  a  wood- 
ibis,  shining  white  in  the  gloomy  place.  I  think 
it  the  finest  specimen  I  ever  saw. 

You  will  see  that  the  note  in  its  last 
sentence  bears  the  inference  of  a  success- 
ful shot.  I  recollect  it  well :  sixty  yards, 
and  a  small  rift  in  a  thicket  to  shoot 
through  —  a  very  trying  piece  of  work  for 
an  archer.  The  flat  trajectory  of  a  rifle- 
ball  eliminates  such  a  difficulty ;  but  an 
arrow  at  sixty  yards  rises  five  or  more  feet 
above  the  line  of  sight, — of  course,  I  speak 
of  heavy  hunting-shafts, — and  this  often 
157 


B  /n^arsb*=Ian^  1rnci^ent 

causes  serious  interference  with  the  shot 
where  the  trees,  branches,  and  under- 
growth are  thick.  A  nice  calculation 
must  be  made  in  an  instant,  and  the 
factors  are  many,  each  one  absolutely  im- 
portant. In  the  present  case  I  had  plenty 
of  time;  for  the  bird  did  not  see  me  or 
even  suspect  danger  from  any  quarter. 

Have  you  ever  heard  a  bow-shot  in  a 
lonely  forest,  when  the  wind  was  still  and 
nothing  but  wild  bird-voices  broke  the 
primeval  silence?  It  is  a  memorable 
sound ;  not  a  "  twang,"  as  the  poets  say, 
nor  yet  a  dead  "  flap,"  but  rather  a  sub- 
dued yet  ringing  noise  (like  that  from  a 
smitten  tambourine  muffled  in  cotton),  and 
followed  by  the  low  "  whish-sh  "  of  the 
flying  arrow;  then  the  stroke.  It  is  all 
one  phrase  of  three  notes.  You  may 
think  it  would  not  impress  you ;  but  I  tell 
you  that  few  natures  are  proof  against  it. 
It  is  an  elementary,  an  aboriginal  voice, 
with  singular  power  in  it. 

A  friend  of  mine  who  had  been,  in  his 
youth,    a    tireless    woodsman    in    the    far 
West,  told  me  about  lying,  once  upon   a 
158 


H  /iDarsb^Ian^  1^nct^ent 

time,  half  asleep  at  the  root  of  a  tree.  For 
many  days  he  had  been  wandering  all 
alone.  It  was  high  noon,  and  he  felt  the 
need  of  rest.  The  great  forest  was  still, 
silent,  gloomy.  Suddenly  a  sound, 
*' chuff!"  fifty  yards  away,  was  followed 
by  a  sharp  whisper,  and  then  **  whack!" 
an  arrow  struck  into  the  tree's  bole  an 
inch  above  his  head!  A  lordly  savage, 
who  was  a  poor  archer,  had  taken  a 
chance  shot  at  him  from  behind  a  rock. 
"Well,"  said  my  friend,  shaking  his  head 
in  memory  of  the  "  close  call,"  and  smiling 
reminiscently,  "  an  arrow  sounds  scarier 
'n  any  bullet!" 

To  this  moment  that  shot  at  the  ibis  is 
a  fresh  line  on  a  page  of  my  experience, 
and  I  can  scarcely  realize  that  it  was  years 
ago  that  I  loosed  the  shaft.  I  hear  the 
bow's  sturdy  recoil,  the  keen  sibilation  of 
the  arrow,  the  dull,  successful  stroke. 
Doubtless  the  joy  of  an  archer  comes  from 
a  deeper  well  than  that  of  the  man  who 
shoots  with  a  gun.  I  have  tried  both 
weapons.  It  is  almost  infinitely  easier  to 
take  game  with  a  fowling-piece  than  with 
159 


H  /lDarsb*=lant)  ITnctbent 

a  bow;  but  the  demand  which  the  old  im- 
plement makes  upon  one's  patience,  wari- 
ness, stealth,  skill,  is  of  itself  an  endless 
fascination  ;  and  when,  at  last,  the  success- 
ful shot  is  delivered,  something  strangely 
and  inexplicably  thrilling  comes  out  of  it. 
Moreover,  the  simple  fact  that  shots  are 
many  and  killings  few  may  account 
for  the  greater  part  of  sylvan  archery's 
fascination.  The  archer  shoots  for  the 
joy  of  shooting,  not  for  the  bag's  weight. 
I  have  read  old  Roger  Ascham's  '*  Tox- 
ophilus  "  in  many  an  ancient  wood,  while 
resting  and  waiting  for  the  wild  things  to 
show  themselves.  Ascham  was  no  sylvan 
bowman,  nor  is  his  little  book  adequate  to 
the  needs  of  one  who  aspires  to  successful 
wild-wood  shooting ;  but  it  is  a  quaint  style 
he  wields,  an  ancient  and  moss-covered 
diction,  so  that  nosing  over  *'  Toxophilus  " 
in  a  wild  forest  nook  has  its  justification 
and  its  comfort.  By  my  note-book  I  am 
reminded  that  after  I  had  secured  the  ibis, 
and  duly  taken  its  dimensions  for  ornithol- 
ogy's sake,  I  sat  down,  with  the  great 
bird  on  one  side  of  me  and  my  bow  on 
1 60 


B  /iDarsb'^lanb  Ifncibent 

the  other,  to  read  awhile,  as  is  my  way. 
"  Got  Ascham  out  of  my  pocket,"  runs 
the  note,  **  and  read  him  for  an  hour — the 
stilted  old  scamp !  In  my  opinion,  he  was 
but  a  book-archer,  shooting  poorly  even 
with  his  pen ;  yet  somehow  he  managed 
to  get  into  the  current  of  eternity,  and 
here  he  is."  Yes,  sure  enough;  there  he 
was,  archaic  spelling  and  all,  telling  me  how 
to  "shote." 

But,  curiously  enough,  neither  Ascham 
nor  the  magnificent  ibis,  neither  the  fine 
shooting  at  herons,  a  little  later,  nor  the 
exhilarating  walk  back  to  the  boat  against 
a  freshening  breeze,  could  affect  me  as  had 
the  little  egret  when  it  flattened  itself  on 
the  ground  in  deadly  fear  of  the  downward- 
swooping  hawk. 


i6i 


HORACE  did  not  change  countenance 
or  offer  even  a  formal  objection  when 
I  seized  him,  stuffed  him — I  do  not  know 
which  end  foremost — into  the  pocket  of  my 
shooting-coat,  and  upon  him  deposited  a 
ham  sandwich.  He  may  have  enjoyed  the 
jaunt  I  gave  him  that  fine  March  morning. 
To  tell  the  whole  truth,  I  forgot  all  about 
him  and  the  luncheon  until  after  a  long, 
breezy  tramp  through  an  orchard-land, 
the  pear-trees  flecked  with  snowy  blooms 
and  the  peach-clumps  still  shimmering  in 
a  robe  of  dreamy  pink,  and  after  two 
hours  of  shooting  in  a  verdant  marsh-mea- 
dow, when  I  sat  down  to  rest  on  the  but- 
tressed roots  of  a  small  live-oak,  which 
stood  solitary  beside  a  little  creek  or  tide- 
way. Then  a  nip  of  hunger  sent  my  hand 
162 


to  my  sagginc^  pocket,  and  I  discovered 
that  Ouintus  Horatius  Flaccus  had  some- 
how got  himself  on  top  of  the  sandwich, 
and  had  smashed  it  to  pulp,  save  that  the 
Hberal  slice  of  ham  lay  comfortably  greasy 
and  quiet  between  two  odes,  anointing 
them  with  artistic  impartiality. 

Disappointment  on  my  part  did  not  seem 
to  disturb  the  old  poet,  who  complacently 
dreamed  on,  while  I  ate  the  amorphous 
remains  fished  out  from  among  his  lyrics, 
noil  sine  fistula^  the  meadow-larks  piping 
in  the  green  grass  round  about.  So  I  took 
him  for  dessert,  as  it  were,  beginning  with 
the  first  ode  and  reading  straight  away  to 
the  last  verse  of  Lib.  IV,  Carmen  XV — 
just  two  hours  and  forty-five  minutes  by 
the  watch.  Many  of  the  odes*  I  knew  by 
heart;  but  they  are  always  fresh  when  I 
read  them.  Herons  and  kingfishers  joined 
me  while  I  mouthed  those  mellow  vowel- 
sounds.  "  Kee-owk!"  cried  one.  *' Twidg- 
g-g-dt!"  repeated  the  other.  They  be- 
haved as  though  they  meant  to  exasperate 
me  until  I  should  risk  a  shaft  or  two  at 
them  beyond  the  creek,  which  was  too  deep 
163 


art  an^  /iDone^ 

for  me  to  cross.  One  splendid  queen  egret 
{Hydranassa  tricolor)  dropped  to  a  little 
tussock  on  the  opposite  water-line,  not 
forty  paces  distant,  and  posed  with  incom- 
parable grace.  I  sat  so  still  against  the 
tree  that  even  those  piercing  eyes  did  not 
distinguish  me.  The  wind  was  in  my  favor, 
blowing  lightly  and  steadily,  and  by  slow 
degrees  I  worked  my  field-glass  up  so  as 
to  take  a  look.  I  like  to  study  these  very 
shy  wild  things  unawares  at  short  range. 

As  for  the  kingfisher,  it  was  doing  a 
trick,  now  and  again,  which  these  birds 
have  learned  in  the  regions  where  there 
are  no  trees,  rocks,  or  high  banks  for  them 
to  perch  upon.  It  hovered  stationary  in 
the  air  a  short  distance  above  the  water, 
using  its  wings  merely  to  sustain  itself,  until 
a  little  fish  was  discovered  ;  then  like  a  bolt 
it  plumped  down,  with  a  liquid  sound  and 
a  sparkling  splash.  Invariably,  when  un- 
successful, it  rose  again,  almost  perpendic- 
ularly, to  its  former  altitude,  uttering  its 
harsh,  giggling  cry,  *^  Twidg-g-g-dt ! "  and 
rufBing  its  shining  crest,  as  if  mightily 
excited.  When  tired  it  came  and  perched 
164 


on  the  topmost  dead  spire  of  my  tree,  but 
observed  me  almost  instantly,  and  flew 
away   far   down   the   creek. 

Horace,  meantime,  had  shown  all  the 
vast  indifference  of  genius,  taking  no 
notice  whatever  of  my  preference  for  the 
birds,  knowing  that  it  was  but  temporary, 
while  his  fascination  was  more  enduring 
than  brass.  The  pretty  egret  walked  along 
beside  the  water,  and  presently  passed  out 
of  sight  behind  some  rushes  and  aquatic 
weeds.  "Jam  te  captum  teneo,"  said 
Horace,  and  I  settled  again  to  my  reading. 

Maecenas,  mearum 
Grande  decus  columenque  rerum. 

There  it  is  again.  In  the  second  verse  of 
the  first  ode  it  was 

O  et  praesidium  et  dulce  decus  meum. 

When  a  poet  has  a  Maecenas  he  is  a  fool 
if  he  neglects  to  flatter  him.  Horace  is 
not  a  fool.  He  knows  who  it  was  gave 
him  his  Sabine  farm  and  made  it  possible 
for  him  to  sip  veteris  pocula  Massici  and 
lounge  idly  beside  the  sacred  well-heads. 
Ah,  this  lounging,  this  leisure,  this  ampli- 
165 


tude  of  reflection!  What  if  one  could 
have  it  all  in  this  iron  age  ?  For  my  own 
day's  outing  with  my  bird-tackle  and  Hor- 
ace, I  shall  have  to  work  at  double  stint 
for  a  whole  week.  Indeed,  the  desk-obH- 
gation  weighs  on  me  too  often  in  the  midst 
of  the  infrequent  recreative  delights  which 
come  by  way  of  stolen  interviews  with 
nature. 

In  spite  of  a  determination  to  be  wholly 
wild,  careless,  and  free,  the  sense  of  truancy 
steals  over  me.  I  must  make  money ;  for 
I  am  an  American.  The  scribbler  must 
live  and  thrive  as  well  as  the  best,  and  it 
is  not  possible  to  live  and  thrive  on  marsh 
air  and  bird-study.  Doubtless  there  is 
something  in  our  civilization  which  en- 
genders a  coarse  practicality.  We  are 
trying  to  write  practical  poetry,  practical 
novels,  practical  dramas ;  we  are  painting 
practical  pictures.  And  the  whole  end 
and  aim  of  art  would  seem  to  be  money, 
money,  money.  The  target  now  shining 
against  the  slope  of  Parnassus  is  a  well- 
stuffed   purse. 

But  we  are  a  jolly  lot,  we  latter-day 
1 66 


Hrt  ant)  /IDonei^ 

artists.  What  we  miss  in  the  way  of  that 
fine,  tenuous  dream-film  on  which  the  old- 
time  masters  lived,  we  gain  in  roast  beef 
and  potatoes,  ham  and  eggs,  pate  de  foie 
gras,  and  plum-pudding.  We  have  no 
trouble  about  what  the  coming  generations 
are  going  to  think  of  us.  Give  us  present 
vogue,  a  pull  at  the  horn  of  plenty,  stir 
up  in  our  behalf  a  roaring  advertisement, 
guarantee  the  box-receipts,  and  you  may 
have  all  that  posterity  could  possibly 
award  to  our  memory  on  the  score  of  high 
artistic  accomplishment. 

Well,  you  may  say,  had  n't  the  Greeks 
a  like  view?  Live  for  the  present,  was 
their  constant  cry.  True  enough ;  but  note 
the  difference :  Their  theory  of  life  did 
not  affect  the  substance  of  their  art.  They 
did  live  for  the  current  moment;  but  into 
their  art  they  dashed  the  last  refinement 
of  leisurely  and  conscientious  labor,  the 
highest  power  of  idealization.  And  after 
them  the  great  Latin  masters  did  likewise  ; 
so  did  the  giants  of  the  Renaissance  and 
the  founders  of  modern  art  and  letters.  A 
conscientious  regard  for  the  sacredness  of 
167 


art  anb  /IDone^ 

art,  holding  inviolate  the  duty  which  binds 
the  compact  between  the  artist  and  those 
upon  whom  his  art  is  cast  as  a  bread  of 
life,  gives  the  sacred  joy  after  which  every 
inspired  soul  goes  seeking  in  the  golden 
region  of  creative  life.  It  is  the  joy  of  the 
bird  in  the  green  grove,  the  joy  of  the  bee 
in  the  season  of  honey-flowers,  the  passion 
of  gathering  and  combining  in  the  heat  of 
inspiration,  in  the  rapture  of  imagination. 

Tantus  amor  florum,  et  generandi  gloria  mellis. 

Tennyson,  the  noblest  poet  since  Shak- 
spere,  has  shown  us  how  this  undeviating 
devotion  to  art  through  a  long  lifetime 
can  round  up  the  stature  of  a  great  man. 
As  that  distinct  something  which  we  call 
a  great  personality,  we  must  regard  Alfred 
Tennyson  above  all  the  Englishmen  of  his 
time.  He  affected  more  powerfully  a 
greater  audience  than  any  man  in  the 
world  born  within  the  past  century  and  a 
half.  Carlyle,  Gladstone,  Goethe,  Napoleon, 
Browning,  Bismarck  —  not  one  of  them  has 
touched  and  influenced  half  as  many  souls 
as  the  great  dreamer  of  "  In  Memoriam," 
i68 


"Idyls  of  the  King,"  and  a  hundred  incom- 
parable lyrics. 

No  novelist  since  Scott  has  half  com- 
pared with  him  in  universality  of  influence. 
Here  again  a  mighty  man  grew  apace  with 
the  man's  art.  Scott  was  not  what  we  call 
a  line  workman,  but  he  was  great,  and  in 
love  with  workmanship  ;  he  sacrificed  him- 
self on  the  altar  of  Hterature.  No  one  can 
read  his  life  without  regretting  that  mis- 
fortune and  a  mighty  sense  of  honor  forced 
him,  in  his  later  days,  to  do  what  we  are 
all  doing  without  compulsion.  He  ground 
out  literature,  and  his  life,  for  money.  He 
is  the  most  illustrious  example  of  the  atttetir 
d'argejit.  But  he  is  also  the  one  Homeric 
figure  of  modern  times,  and  the  most  pa- 
thetic of  all  time. 

Reading  the  letters  of  the  late  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  edited  by  Mr.  Sidney 
Colvin,  is  like  hearing  a  soft  Southern  sea 
booming  "  Money,  money,  money!"  while 
the  sky  smiles  and  the  winds  smack  of  nard 
and  spice.  Think  of  a  writer  with  an  in- 
come of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year 
forever  worried  because  he  has  not  more! 
169 


Stevenson  was  a  delightful  knight  of  the 
quill  who  never  cheapened  his  work  in 
order  to  increase  the  output ;  but  he 
burned  himself  up  as  a  candle  by  which  to 
see  his  financial  way.  We  feel,  in  reading 
his  books,  what  literature  he  could  have 
made  had  he  been  quite  free  to  write  just 
what  and  how  he  pleased,  with  not  even 
the  tail  of  an  eye  on  a  guinea. 

Ah,  the  good  old  days  when  the  artist 
had  his  rich  patron,  when  the  poet  had  his 
pension !  We  may  well  sigh  back  at  them, 
as  at  the  golden  age  of  our  tribe.  Then 
it  was  that  the  writer  could  have  his  own 
way,  his  own  time,  could  play  with  a  sub- 
ject as  a  cat  with  a  mouse,  or  spring  upon 
it  and  devour  it  bodily  —  always  obeying 
the  instinct  of  his  genius.  Really,  this  is 
the  return  to  nature — namely,  to  do  what 
one's  genius  dictates,  uninfluenced  by  the 
fashion  of  one's  time,  unmindful  of  the 
quotations  from  the  literary  market  reports. 

A  Scott  wringing  his  giant  mind  dry  and 
dissolving  his  great  physique  in  order  to 
cover  so  much  paper  with  so  much  litera- 
ture at  so  much  the  page ;  the  vision  of  Ste- 
170 


Hrt  ant)  /iDonei^ 

venson  wreaking  his  frail  life  upon  the 
effort  to  touch  the  lucky  nerve  of  fortune — 
these  and  a  hundred  other  examples  are  not 
half  so  distressing  to  one's  sympathies  as 
a  case  like  that  of  Sidney  Lanier  or  Henry 
Timrod  or  Paul  Hayne.  There  was,  in 
the  fate  of  the  three  Southerners,  a  singu- 
lar leer  of  the  god  we  call  111  Fortune. 
They  were  not  money-artists ;  they 
wrought  in  the  old-fashioned  high  sin- 
cerity, with  but  one  aim,  to  give  the  great- 
est beauty  of  form  to  the  greatest  beauty 
of  thought.  They  died  penniless,  but 
with  souls  as  white  as  snow.  Every 
thought  they  set  to  song  was  as  pure  as 
distilled  water;  but  they  could  get  no 
money.  Perhaps  the  moral  is — if  there  is 
one — that  a  true  poet  should  have  had 
better  luck  than  being  born  poor  in  an  age 
when  money  is  so  necessary  to  that  leisure 
which  alone  insures  great  art. 

We  are  inclined  to  be  jocund  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  poets  who  try  to  boil  their  pots 
over  the  heat  of  those  little  space- fillers 
in  the  magazines.  But,  in  fact,  how  piti- 
ful! "Still,"  says  the  up-to-date  rhymester, 
171 


"  I  'd  rather  have  ten  dollars  earned  with 
my  oaten  flute  than  a  hundred  got  by 
bookkeeping."  In  a  word,  the  ambition 
of  our  singer  is 

Signatum  praesente  nota  producere  nummum. 

Money  truly  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  What 
further  argument  against  the  old  saying, 
when  we  even  find  the  Muses  singing  and 
dancing  to  the  clink  of  coins,  and  measur- 
ing their  smiles  by  the  length  of  a  purse? 

Cur  Berecyntiae 
Cessant  flamina  tibiae  ? 

Cur  pendet  tacita  fistula  cum  lyra? 

Oh,  poetry  is  a  drug  in  the  market ;  there 
is  no  money  in  producing  it;  that  is  the 
answer,  Mr.  Flaccus.  A  stale  joke  sells 
for  more  than  an  original  poem.  The 
best  ode  that  you  ever  wrote,  sir,  would  not 
to-day  bring  enough  money  to  buy  you  a 
pair  of  trousers.  If  you  doubt  my  word, 
try  the  experiment ;  offer  an  *'Ad  Chloen  " 
or  an  "Ad  Melpomenen  "  for  the  price  of 
a  toga,  and  then,  after  you  've  been  laughed 
out  of  the  office,  my  dear  Horace,  try  and 
172 


repeat  that  little  phrase  of  yours  about 
amabiles  vatiim  choros,  if  you  please. 
Amabiles,   indeed! 

But,  Horace,  I  am  done  with  you ;  for 
a  purple  gallinule  has  come  out  of  the  wet 
grass  yonder  and  is  standing  in  all  its 
beauty  on  a  pad  of  spatter-dock  floating 
and  swaying  against  the  creek's  low  and 
muddy  bank.  Now  there  is  the  body  of 
symmetry  for  art  to  copy,  there  the  color 
to  haunt  the  poet's  imagination.  How 
perfectly  the  royal  tints  shade  into  one 
another!  A  shy,  dainty,  graceful  little 
thing,  moving  lightly  with  sea-blue  flick- 
erings  and  half-liftings  of  wings  and  tail, 
it  somehow  suspects  the  near  presence  of 
danger,  yet  dares  to  go  farther  and  farther, 
with  many  quick  starts  and  keen  glances, 
its  agitation  intensifying  both  its  brilliance 
of  plumage  and  the  expression  of  its  atti- 
tudes. Nature  never  produced  a  more 
charming  bit  of  grace,  color,  life.  Keats 
wrote  an  '*  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,"  and 
Shelley  one  "  To  a  Skylark  " ;  I  wonder 
how  much  I  could  get  for  an  *'  Ode  to  a 
Purple  Gallinule"? 

173 


IReturn  to  IRature 

Ille  terrarum  mihi  praeter  omnis 
Angulus  ridet. 

IT  is  growing  difficult,  even  in  the  quiet- 
est nooks  of  the  country,  to  find  a  primi- 
tive wood,  a  grove  standing  just  as  nature 
made  it,  with  not  an  ax-mark,  not  any 
evidence  of  man's  destructive  meddHng, 
above  or  below,  on  the  ground  or  amid  the 
branches  on  high.  When  such  a  boscage 
is  come  upon,  however,  the  distinction  of 
its  air  betrays  its  age  and  its  vital  splen- 
dor, as  we  sometimes  see  unquenchable 
youthfulness  illuminate  the  countenance  of 
an  octogenarian,  suggesting  an  inner  source 
of  perpetual  renewal. 

The  soil  in  which,  from  the  beginning, 
trees  have  flourished,  fallen,  and  decayed, 
where   leaves   have   moldered   for   untold 
174 


iReturn  to  IRature 

centuries,  where  seeds  have  sent  up  new 
shoots  to  grow  slowly  but  surely,  is  na- 
ture's original  material,  out  of  which  fresh- 
ness is  made.  Under  the  dense  canopy,  in 
the  dreamy  gloom,  listen  well,  and  you  may 
hear  the  sweet  sound  of  labor  going  on — 
the  nemorum  iminmir — underground,  high 
in  the  tree-tops,  far  and  near,  roots,  boles, 
branches,  leaves,  all  strenuously  drawing 
upon  the  invisible  veins  of  earth  and  air. 

A  rich,  musty  smell  pervades  every 
space  between  the  clumps  of  dusky  under- 
growth (where,  beside  a  rotten  log,  the  In- 
dian turnip  has  come  up  here  and  yonder), 
an  exhalation  wandering  and  elusive,  not 
known  outside  of  the  savage  wilderness. 
It  is  an  effluence  good  for  the  imagination, 
fertilizing  it,  sowing  it  with  ancient  spores 
of  originality.  Like  a  whiff  of  song  from 
Arcadia  comes  the  breeze  through  that 
crepuscular  haunt  of  slumber  and  growth, 
whispering  old  Greek  phrases  to  immemo- 
rial tunes. 

I  have  found  in  the  Southern  mountain 
regions  many  pathless  wood-nooks,  set 
aslant  against  the  rocky  ridges,  where  not 
175 


IReturn  to  IPlature 

a  sign  of  human  life  could  be  seen.  A 
stream  is  always  the  central  line,  the  axis 
upon  which  the  charming  solitude  has  been 
revolving  through  the  ages.  And  in  the 
damp,  still  thickets  along  the  water's  way 
lives  the  wood-thrush,  with  his  wonderful 
song-phrase  always  at  his  beak- tip.  He 
sings  of  the  lily,  the  lily  that  I  have  never 
seen,  the  "  mountain-strolling  lily "  — 
oupsai^oira  xpiva — known  to  Meleager. 

Why  not  think  over  again  the  far-off 
poet's  delightful  feHcity  of  expression? 
Here  I  am  beside  a  gurgling  stream,  deep 
in  the  stillness  of  eld,  surrounded  by  the 
divina  voluptas  distilled  from  substances 
absolutely  pure.  What  I  breathe  is  un- 
sophisticated, what  I  assimilate  can  build 
up  no  imperfect  tissues,  make  no  feverish 
blood.  The  wood-thrush  and  I,  we  have 
found  Arethusa,  we  have  lipped  and  beaked 
a  smack  of  Hybla.     We  hum  in  unison: 

The  mountain-strolling  lilies  blow— 

I   demand  explanation.      What  is  this 
haunting  sub-thought,  not  quite  reachable, 
176 


IReturn  to  iRature 

dimly  glimmering  under  a  poet's  perfect 
phrase,  under  the  bubbling  of  fresh  spring- 
water,  under  the  wood-thrush's  shy  song  ? 
Naturalists,  ornithologists,  and  dictionary- 
makers  are  blind,  deaf,  numb  in  every 
sense,  when  they  attempt  definition. 
What  could  be  more  stupid,  for  example, 
than  Liddell  and  Scott's  "  mountain-haunt- 
ing "  in  explanation  of  Meleager's  phrase, 
just  sung  by  the  thrush?  These  dry- 
brained  scholars,  desiccated  in  the  book- 
parched  air  of  libraries,  do  not  understand 
the  fine  activities  of  a  poet's  pen  and  mind ; 
their  criticism  is  a  sort  of  paleontology. 
Like  all  "  scientists,"  they  are  ashamed  of 
word- blossoms  and  phrase-dew. 

But  here  is  my  wood-thrush  in  the 
primeval  grove,  artlessly  and  absolutely 
correct,  rendering  to  the  untainted  air  what 
should  go  down  through  the  Greek  lexi  - 
cons  for  evermore  as  the  definition  of 
oopsoLfpoiia  xptva  —  **  mountain  -  straying 
Hlies."  I  know  this,  for  the  bird's  voice 
broke  in  upon  my  reading  and  caught  up 
my  imagination,  bearing  it  away  to  the 
hills,  far,  far— how  very  far !  And  I  saw 
177 


IReturn  to  Bature 

the  lilies,  as  if  hand  in  hand,  going  idly 
and  happily  up  the  slopes  and  over  the 
peaks  to  the  valleys  beyond. 

Furthermore,  the  wood-thrush  lays  upon 
his  liquid  flute-strain  a  strange  weight  of 
interpretation  not  to  be  misunderstood  in 
this  garden  of  sincerity.  He  tells  me  why 
the  lilies  wander  across  the  hills ;  it  is  to 
search  out  the  secret  of  unfading  beauty. 
Just  over  beyond  the  summit,  in  some 
favored  dell,  there  is  a  spot,  the  paradise  of 
lilies,  whither  the  rovers  all  are  bound. 
And  now  that  I  think  of  it,  I  have  been 
there  myself,  eastward  of  Yonah,  beside  a 
brook,  and  have  spent  a  week  and  two  days 
with  my  fly-rod  and  the  anthology,  some 
notes  of  which  dallying-time  are  in  the  little 
soiled  pocket-book  on  the  desk  before  me. 
I  wonder  if  I  am  the  only  person  in  the 
world  who  finds  a  haunting,  wavering, 
elusive  something  in  certain  strokes  of 
Greek  poetry  comparable  to  no  other  im- 
pression save  that  made  by  bird-phrases 
in  a  lonely  wood  ?  Keats  nearly  coincided 
with  me  in  feeling  when  he  wrote : 

The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 
In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown. 

178 


IReturn  to  IRature 

But  his  allusion  was  not  directed  partic- 
ularly to  what  has  so  often  held  my  ima- 
gination suspended  between  a  bird-note 
and  a  wonderful  word  or  sentence  echoing 
back  through  purple  centuries.  Not  the 
obvious  meaning,  but  the  absolute  inner 
thrill  engendered  by  a  turn  of  diction,  is 
the  thing;  and  such  a  thrill  the  wood- 
thrush  can  send  through  me  with  his  song. 

The  other  day  I  was  under  a  maple-tree 
in  a  wild  little  dell  not  far  from  the  center 
of  Indiana,  listening  to  a  cat-bird's  song 
and  at  the  same  time  making  the  following 
note  on  a  page  of  my  Greek  anthology : 

What  about  F.  W.  Bourdillon's  verses : 

"  The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes, 

And  the  heart  but  one." 

I  wonder  if  the  poet  had  ever  heard  Plato's  Hnes : 

ohpavoq,  io<;  koIXoZc,  o/x|xaatv  tlq,  oe  ^Xskoj." 

O  my  star,  at  the  stars  thou  gazest ;  would  that 
I  were  the  sky,  that  I  might  look  upon  thee  with 
many  eyes. 

It  was  no  plagiarism,  even  if  Mr.  Bour- 
dillon  had  Plato's  very  words  in  mind ;  for 
179 


IRetutn  to  IRature 

it  is  the  work  of  genius  to  fill  new  combs 
with  old  honey  redistilled.  Our  nineteenth- 
century  poet  sophisticated  the  Greek 
thought  with  a  Celtic  sadness  much  to  the 
taste  of  our  time,  albeit  his  name  is  French. 

The  wild  flowers  grow  thickest  and  most 
luxuriant  on  spots  where  many  generations 
of  flowers  have  fallen  down  and  decayed. 
Out  of  the  old  Greek  mold  fresh  life  bursts 
when  the  true  poet  stirs  it.  Go  read 
Swinburne's  lyrics,  and  feel  how  original 
they  are,  and  yet  how  they  connect  them- 
selves back  with  what  was  sung  while  yet 
men  and  women  heard  Pan  fluting  beside 
his  cave. 

Men  change,  but  true  song  does  not 
change.  On  the  bough  yonder  the  thrush 
repeats  what  was  a  thrush's  song  ten  thou- 
sand years  ago,  and  yet  how  thrillingly 
sweet!  The  joy  of  it  never  comes  amiss 
to  the  ear  of  man  or  bird.  The  *'  moun- 
tain-straying lilies "  are  to-day  just  like 
those  that  Meleager  saw ;  but  how  beau- 
tiful! Our  poets  complain  that  nobody 
reads  their  songs.  Well,  do  our  poets  go 
to  nature  for  the  key-note,  as  did  the 
1 80 


IReturn  to  mature 

singers  whose  chords  have  remained  true 
and  irresistible  for  centuries? 

But  what  does  it  matter  to  the  genuine 
poet  whether  his  contemporaries  read  his 
songs  or  not  ?  No  question  of  commercial 
values  ever  went  into  a  true  piece  of  art ; 
the  one  all-embracing  concern  was  the  ex- 
pression of  inexpressible  beauty.  A  song 
of  the  cat-bird  or  of  the  wood-thrush  is 
just  that,  no  matter  when  or  where  sung, 
and  the  longing  of  the  lilies,  as  they  wander 
over  the  hills,  is  just  that  in  all  ages.  So 
much,  at  least,  we  may  gather  from  a 
primeval  wood-nook  and  an  hour  with  the 
old  anthology. 


i8r 


B?  a  Mooblanb  Spring 

IliSaxo?  14  lepYji;  hXi^r^  Xi^ocg  axpov  atotov. 

THE  obsolete  word  '*  sourd  "  has  always 
tempted  me,  as  most  forbidden  things 
have,  through  some  not  exactly  definable 
fascination  arising  out  of  mere  vagueness 
and  remoteness.  It  comes  to  my  tongue's 
end  and  to  my  pen's  nib  whenever  I  speak 
or  write  about  a  spring.  It  is  a  cool  word, 
a  bubble  of  refreshing  significance  rising 
through  my  brain,  as  you  have  seen  the 
crystal  globes  quiver  up,  clear,  chill,  sweet, 
from  the  vague  depth  of  a  well-head. 

Soberly  speaking,  why  shall  one  be 
bound  by  the  dictionary  at  all  hazards? 
Of  course  there  must  be  an  academic  tra- 
dition in  literature,  a  supreme  source,  to 
which  we  return  seasonably  for  the  con- 
ventional bath;  but  a  word  is  not  to  be 
182 


3B^  a  MooMant)  SprirtG 

escaped  when  it  rises  out  of  a  thought's 
center  and  proves  itself  to  be  the  absolute 
expression.  Even  the  dust-covered  and 
shelf- worn  scholar  must  feel  the  difference 
between  mere  word-hunting  and  the  vig- 
orous freedom  of  using  the  very  word  of 
one's  choice.  A  case  of  logolepsy  is  easily 
distinguished  from  the  perfectly  sane  mood 
which  demands  and  imperiously  seizes  the 
X6^(0(;y  the  pregnant  sign,  and  makes  it  the 
exponent  of  a  hidden  power. 

I  am  sitting  on  a  mossy  log  with  an 
open  book  on  my  knee.  At  my  feet  a 
little  spring  puts  forth  its  trickling  runnel. 
The  well  is  clear  and  strong,  a  voice  of 
nature  which  says :  "  Sourd,  sourd,  rise 
and  flow  on!"  Water  is  not  aware  of  the 
academies  and  the  obsoletes ;  possibly  this 
is  why  its  noise  is  so  charming  in  these 
cool  places  of  the  woods.  Overhead  the 
crowded,  dusky  leaves  shake  with  a  sound 
of  multitudinous  kissing,  and  one  trim 
wood-thrush  goes  ,like  a  shadow  through 
the  bosket  yonder,  piping  a  liquid,  haunt- 
ing phrase,  which  wavers  between  the  ex- 
tremes of  joy  and  pain.  There  is  just 
183 


JB^  a  MooManb  Sprtna 

enough  light  here  to  read  Keats  by — the 
light  of  neither  sea  nor  land,  the  soft 
crepuscle  of  a  thick  forest. 

An  expert  bookworm  could  see  even  in 
that  shade  and  from  a  distance  of  ten  paces 
that  the  volume  I  am  nursing  has  opened 
of  its  own  accord  at  the  beginning  of  the 
*•  Ode  to  a  Nightingale " ;  and  here  the 
pages  are  much  thumbed  and  the  words 
dim,  as  if  worn  thin  by  much  reading.  The 
leaves  lie  flat  to  the  left  and  right,  with  an 
expression  of  habitual  attitudinizing  for 
effect,  a  mannerism  caught  during  the 
quarter-century  that,  as  boy  and  man,  I 
have  been  preferring  this  particular  ode ; 
indeed,  the  pages  always  part  at  this  place 
and  spread  themselves  complacently  limp — 
conscious,  one  would  imagine,  of  the  allure- 
ment they  possess  for  the  present  reader. 

In  nature's  soHtude  is  the  place  where 
you  can  read  this  "  Ode  to  a  Nightin- 
gale "  with  full  appreciation  of  its  art. 
The  library,  the  lamp,  the  must  and  bou- 
quet of  fine  learning,  do  not  afford  the 
adequate  entourage  for  a  bit  of  such  ex- 
quisite Hterary  craftsmanship.  Indeed,  the 
184 


Bi?  a  MooManb  Spring 

final  test  of  art  is  when  you  lay  it  upon 
nature ;  and  its  triumph  is  when  it  reaches 
beyond  the  unsatisfying  limits  of  nature 
into  the  dreamy  yet  real  distances  of  imagi- 
nation. The  bird  intuitively  makes  avail 
of  this,  when  it  sings,  by  laying  its  voice  in 
a  film  of  ventriloquial  deceit,  so  that  oft- 
times  the  listener  is  scarcely  able  to  decide 
from  what  direction  the  song  comes. 
Lyric  poetry  of  the  highest  sort  leaves 
you  in  a  tremulous,  twilight  doubt  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  ideal.  This  doubt  at 
once  arises  when  you  begin  to  read  Keats's 
matchless  ode  in^some  wild,  rank  nook,  deep 
amid  the  undergrowth  of  a  primitive  wood. 
In  the  study,  among  books,  where  the 
atmosphere  is  artificial,  one  does  not  real- 
ize the  elementary  ancestral  trick  of  genius 
with  which  Keats,  the  divine  boy,  manip- 
ulated language  so  as  to  make  his  thoughts 
seem  naturally  suggested  by  a  nightingale 
singing.  But  when  'jead  in  the  presence 
of  facts  thrust  up  by  the  actual  heave  of 
nature,  these  melodious  minors  of  the 
poet's  harp  betray  the  artful  fingering  of 
a  divinely  sophisticated  musician. 

185 


JSi?  a  TKHooblanD  Spring 

It  is  a  "regular  ode"  in  the  critic's 
nomenclature;  each  stanza  of  ten  verses 
stands  complete,  with  an  invisible  da  capo 
at  its  end.  After  reading  the  first  we  know 
them  all,  so  far  as  real  musical  form 
goes.  But  the  thrush  yonder  knew  this 
trick  before  any  poet  was  born;  its  song- 
organ  has  repeated  over  and  over,  through 
countless  ages,  the  one  thrush  stanza. 
Keats  repeated  his  but  eight  times,  and 
left  the  most  wonderful  creation  of  art  to 
be  found  in  English  poetry.  I  lay  stress 
on  the  word  *'  art  "  ;  for,  to  my  understand- 
ing, Keats's  ode  is  not,  like  one  of  Burns's 
songs,  an  improvisation  without  fore- 
thought or  smack  of  cunning.  The  wonder 
of  it  really  lies  in  the  enormous  amount  of 
book-knowledge  which  has  been  distilled 
to  get  its  essentials,  and  the  craft  with 
which  these  have  been  sprayed,  so  to 
speak,  through  the  almost  faultless  stanzas. 

From  such  words  as  *'  hemlock," 
**  Lethe,"  "Dryad,"  "Flora,"  '*  Proven- 
9al,"  "  Hippocrene,"  he  at  the  outset 
draws  the  drug  for  a  philter,  with  which 
he  strangely  stimulates,  and  at  the  same 
i86 


Bi?  a  MooManO  Spring 

time  sweetly  stupefies,  the  reader's  imagi- 
nation. Perusing  the  first  two  stanzas 
here  in  the  thrush's  grove,  I  see  the  trick 
of  allusion,  which  is  also  illusion,  and 
smile  at  myself  for  ever  having  trusted 
so  implicitly  the  poet's  sentimental  mood, 
and  for  not  having  broken,  in  the  very 
earliest  reading,  the  iridescent  bubble  of 
his  art. 

And  yet  Keats  made  his  ode  just  to  my 
liking.  Many  a  time  I  have  tried  hard  to 
find  a  place  where  I  could  better  it,  even 
with  the  change  of  a  word ;  but  the  phras- 
ing defies  revision.  The  poet  was  very 
young;  he  must  have  been  inspired,  for 
how  else  could  such  a  vocabulary  have 
come  to  a  mere  boy  ?  I  can  find  no  poem 
of  equal  length  this  side  of  the  Greek 
wonders  to  compare  with  the  "  Ode  to  a 
Nightingale  "  on  the  score  of  the  splendor, 
variety,  breadth,  and  comprehensiveness 
of  its  verbal  riches.  On  a  simple  stanzaic 
pattern,  eight  times  occurring,  the  diction 
is  wrought  into  luminous  figures  which 
strike  the  mind  with  the  effect  of  an  im- 
possible melodious  tapestry.     This  is  lit- 

187 


3B^  a  MooManb  Sprtna 

erature  of  the  rarest  sort,  finished  to  the 
minutest  detail.  How  could  a  youth  just 
out  of  his  teens  command  such  wealth  of 
literary  materials? 

The  thrush  yonder  knows  the  secret  of 
style,  which  is  generic  and  hereditary ;  the 
rose-purple  flower  of  the  cypripedium  is 
style :  but  this  amazing  diction  could  not 
be  born  with  the  poet ;  it  is  a  bookish  ac- 
quirement ordinarily  attained  to  by  dint 
of  a  lifetime's  sacrifice.  The  poet  and  the 
bird  part  company  in  song  at  this  point  of 
extra-natural  expression.  Like  the  oscine 
warbler,  the  poet  is  born  with  an  organ  of 
melody  ;  unlike  the  bird,  he  is  conscious  of 
a  necessity  for  enriching  the  tone  of  his 
instrument  and  varying  its  notes.  Liter- 
ature is  conscious  art,  and  poetry  lacking 
Hterature  cannot  live.  Every  thrush  of  a 
given  species  sings  the  same  song;  every 
true  poet  is  the  only  individual  of  his 
species.  The  one  intense,  Hfe-wreaking 
struggle  in  the  art  of  song  is  to  avoid  the 
bird-organ  limit  of  expression.  Many  a 
poet  has  flung  forth  one  almost  perfect 
creation,  and  then  sung  it  over  and  over, 
1 88 


3B^  a  MooMan^  Spring 

or  stood  evermore  dumb,  for  fear  of  the 
almost  insurmountable  wall  that  fate  has 
built  across  the  way  to  ever-changing,  yet 
ever-characteristic,  originality ;  while  for 
eons  the  thrush  has  ground  out  his  one 
melodious  stanza,  happily  unconscious  of 
a  million  repetitions.  Nothwithstanding 
all  this,  which  demands  serious  thinking,  I 
cannot  evade  certain  rays  of  humor  flash- 
ing straight  out  of  the  subject. 

After  all,  the  poet's  dilemma  has  its 
absurdity,  which  might  almost  be  placed 
under  the  sign  of  an  irrational  number,  as 
mathematicians  do  it.  Art  often  suspends 
the  imagination  between  the  wine  and  the 
roast, — entre  la  bouteille  et  le  jamb  on, — so 
that  it  is  impossible  to  be  either  original 
or  elegant,  either  sparkling  or  savory. 
Genius  shows  its  quality  in  extricating 
itself  from  this  predicament.  It  squares 
the  circle  and  invents  perpetual  motion, 
raises  a  surd  to  rationality  and  glorifies 
whatever  it  touches.  But  the  poets  who 
have  great  talent  without  genius,  it  is  they 
who  make  us  laugh  while  they  do  their 
antics  in  the  bath  of  words.  What  foamy 
189 


3Bp  a  1KIlooMan^  Sprina 

struggling!  Phrases  and  phrases,  old  coin 
reburnished — changing  the  figure,  old 
types  regrouped.  They  can  see  nothing 
new  under  the  sun ;  they  grimace  and  show 
the  stress  of  their  voluntary  agony. 

Betimes  along  comes  an  enthusiastic 
boy  by  the  name  of  John  Keats,  hailing 
from  a  livery  stable,  later  a  surgeon's  ap- 
prentice, a  tall,  sickly,  shy  fellow  with  no 
regular  education,  and  before  he  is  twenty- 
five  he  writes  the  most  perfect  ode  in  his 
country's  literature,  taking  for  subject  a 
bird  which  from  the  days  of  Sappho  had 
been  the  victim  of  all  the  singers.  It 
would  seem  impossible  that  this  callow 
stripling  could  make  a  single  new  phrase 
on  such  a  theme.  Centuries  ago  the 
nightingale  became  itself  a  note  in  the 
hereditary  cry  of  poets  of  the  second 
order.  But  mark  how  one  of  the  first 
order  strikes  a  new  chord  from  strings 
worn  to  tatters  over  that  ancient  fret. 
And,  by  the  way,  hear  that  thrush  in  the 
green  tangle,  and  the  well-spring  gurgling. 
Sourd,  sourd,  bubble  up,  flow  on  forever, 
sweet  stream  of  song ! 
190 


H  Swamp  Beaut? 

A  RATTLESNAKE  struck  at  me  from 
under  a  horizontal  palmetto-leaf, 
giving  me  a  twinge  of  horror.  It  was  a 
solid  specimen,  with  great  fangs  curving  on 
each  side  of  its  little  tongue,  and  I  had 
touched  it  lightly  with  the  toe  of  my  boot 
— but  not  intentionally.  When  its  tail 
whizzed  I  sprang  back  just  in  time  to  get 
barely  out  of  range.  The  jab  was  a  sudden 
and  wicked  exhibition  of  malignant  energy, 
albeit  strictly  in  self-defense  from  the 
snake's  point  of  view,  the  force  of  it  ap- 
pearing to  hurl  the  hideous  monster,  still 
but  half  uncoiled,  bodily  along  the  ground. 
It  may  have  been  imagination,  yet  I  should 
not  hesitate  to  say  upon  oath  that  the 
rusty  colors  on  the  thing's  back  and  sides 
191 


H  Swamp  Beauty 

brightened  as  if  anger  had  sent  a  heat  to 
the  surface. 

One  who  has  never  heard  the  rattle- 
snake's song — for  I  must  call  it  that — can 
form  no  just  idea  of  its  strangeness  and 
power.  In  volume  and  pitch  not  much 
beyond  the  tremulous  rasping  of  a  grass- 
hopper, it  is  a  sound  not  to  be  forgotten 
or  mistaken  after  it  has  once  touched  the 
ear.  There  is  a  quality  in  it  as  distinct  as 
the  zest  of  a  fruit,  as  memorable  as  the 
fragrance  of  sassafras,  and  as  terrible  as  a 
first  glimpse  of  death.  These  are  incon- 
gruous comparisons,  but  not  more  so  than 
the  elements  of  that  indescribable  jarring 
hum  made  by  crotalus  in  the  lowland 
jungle.  It  is  not  a  whit  more  terrible 
actually  than  the  noise  of  a  cicada;  but 
yet  something  in  it  has  power  to  stir  up 
the  deepest  fountains  of  cowardice  in  one's 
nature. 

A  rattlesnake  struck  at  me,  as  I  said  a 
moment  ago,  and  that  is  why  I  so  clearly 
recollect  every  incident  of  that  day's  out- 
ing. A  genuine  shock  of  horror  seems  to 
quicken  every  cell  in  one's  tissues  and 
192 


a  Swamp  Mcant^ 

sharpen  the  point  of  every  nerve,  making 
the  brain  open  itself,  so  that  the  moment 
becomes  a  datum  point,  the  beginning 
of  a  new  reckoning.  Doubtless  I  carried 
with  me  all  the  rest  of  the  day  an  echo  of 
those  vibrating  scales  and  a  strange  im- 
pression of  my  narrow  escape  from  those 
shining  fangs.  The  adventure  may  have 
been  strictly  appropriate  as  a  preface  to 
what  followed ;  for  it  turned  out  that  I 
was  to  pass  from  snake  to  snake-bird — not 
a  very  great  step,  considering  Huxley's 
discovery  of  the  close  kinship  between 
reptiles  and  birds;  and  besides,  a  Plotus 
anhinga  had  just  dropped  off  a  cypress 
knee  into  the  coffee-colored  water  of  a 
little  creek  fifty  yards  away. 

Upon  general  principles  one  would  sup- 
pose that  when  a  bird  lets  go  its  hold  and 
falls  perpendicularly  from  its  perch  to  the 
water,  it  is  sure  to  be  found  swimming  on 
the  surface ;  but  this  rule  will  not  apply 
to  PloUts — the  snake-bird — even  under 
most  favorable  circumstances.  As  its 
name  — ttXcotoc; — implies,  it  is  a  great 
swimmer;  but  it  prefers  being  under  the 
''  193 


H  Swamp  :fiSeautp 

surface,  with  not  so  much  as  a  feather 
showing,  while  it  shoots  along  swiftly  as  a 
fish ;  or  if  it  must  have  a  little  air,  you 
will  see  its  head  come  out,  barely  enough 
to  show  a  reptilian  eye,  behind  which  and 
below  wriggles  a  shadowy  neck,  apparently 
without  a  body.  Decidedly  uncanny,  in- 
deed, in  all  its  ways,  is  this  rather  beauti- 
ful and  very  interesting  bird  of  our  plashy 
low  country. 

In  my  own  experience  the  snake-bird 
has  been  a  problem  by  no  means  satisfac- 
torily worked  out.  It  is  a  shy  creature, 
haunting,  for  the  most  part,  difficult  or  in- 
accessible places  in  swamps  and  watery 
jungles,  where  mosquitos  and  moccasins 
congregate  in  numbers  beyond  reasonable 
belief;  but  upon  the  day  now  under  dis- 
cussion I  had  an  exceptionally  good  op- 
portunity, which  I  used  industriously,  to 
make  some  additions  to  my  notes  and 
observations  on  its  singular  appearance 
and  habits.  It  is  a  bird  difficult  to  de- 
scribe. When  flying  low,  so  that  it  is  seen 
about  level  with  one's  eyes,  it  shows  its 
markings  to  best  advantage.  A  clear 
194 


H  Swamp  JBeaut^ 

grayish  white  broad  stripe  passes  across 
its  shoulders,  in  strong  contrast  with  the 
iridescent  greenish  black  of  its  general 
plumage.  But  its  form  is  more  striking 
than  its  colors.  About  three  feet  in  length, 
with  wings  of  beautiful  proportions,  an 
attenuated  neck,  which  when  outstretched 
looks  like  a  delicately  modeled  lance  taper- 
ing to  an  exquisite  point,  the  whole  bird 
appears  much  slenderer  than  it  really  is. 
In  the  sun  its  feathers  shine  with  a  pecu- 
liar glint,  not  unlike  that  of  dark-greenish 
water  when  flecked  with  alternate  leaf- 
shade  and  bright  light.  All  of  its 
movements  may  be  best  described  as 
unexpected.  No  matter  how  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  bird's  ways  you  be- 
come, there  is  always  a  surprise  for  you. 

When  I  reached  a  point  quite  near  the 
stream's  bank  I  saw  nothing  of  the  snake- 
bird,  so  I  sat  down  to  wait,  as  I  often  find 
profit  in  doing  when  in  a  wild  place,  for 
something  to  turn  up.  On  the  side  of 
the  creek  opposite  to  me  a  thick  magnolia 
growth  stood  like  a  hedge,  and  in  the  oozy 
soil  under  it  rank  plants  were  crowded  so 
195 


H  Swamp  Beauty 

closely  that  their  roots  kinked  in  knots 
along  the  surface.  Both  cypress  and  sweet- 
gum  trees  grew  in  the  shallowing  of  the 
stream,  the  cypresses  throwing  up  tall 
knees  and  loops  from  their  wandering 
roots.  A  faint  yet  distant  touch  of 
liquid-amber  on  the  air,  and  a  soft  rustle 
of  magnolia-leaves,  made  the  place  sweet 
despite  the  coflfee-colored  water,  the  rank 
air-plants,  and  the  ill-smelling  muck. 

A  cat-bird  entertained  me  with  pretty 
antics  while  it  scolded  hoarsely.  Some 
other  small  birds  appeared  and  disap- 
peared in  the  thicket,  and  presently  a 
small  sandpiper  came  twinkling  along  just 
above  the  water,  to  stop  on  a  little  sand- 
bar, where  it  stood  for  a  while,  half  lifting 
its  wings  and  flirting  its  short  tail,  its 
body  meantime  wagging  up  and  down.  I 
slipped  out  my  binocular  glass  to  take  a 
leisurely  view  of  the  field,  which  was  thus 
beginning  to  stir  with  life,  and  just  then 
something  cut  the  water  surface  gently; 
a  thin  head,  tapering  and  long-billed,  pro- 
jected above  a  rippling  line  with  a  flaring 
wake  behind  it,  while,  dimly  observable, 
196 


H  Swamp  JBcmt^ 

just  under  the  water  wriggled  a  long, 
shadowy  neck  and  boat-shaped  body.  It 
was  the  snake-bird,  evidently  quite  una- 
ware of  my  presence,  playing  one  of  its 
favorite  tricks,  swimming,  as  a  water-moc- 
casin does,  quite  submerged,  save  its 
acutely  triangular  head  and  beak;  and 
a  moment  or  two  later  it  had  climbed 
with  agile  awkwardness  to  the  top  of  a 
cypress  knee. 

For  perhaps  ten  minutes  I  studied  P/ot^is 
through    the    glass,    noting    every    move, 
even    to    the    leering    turns    of    its    cruel 
eyes.      Its   attitudes   were   few.      Most   of 
the    time   its    neck    formed    a    gentle    re- 
versed curve,  the  head  and  bill  pointing 
upward   at   a   considerable   angle;    but   it 
had  an  eye  on  the  water,  and  when  a  fish, 
or  some  other  attractive  thing,  came  along, 
down  it  plunged,  making  scarcely  a  sound, 
disappearing  in  the   midst  of  a  dimpling 
swirl.    Time  and  again  it  did  this,  promptly 
returning  to   the  cypress  knee  to  resume 
its  watch.      In  repose  the  bird  is  beauti- 
fully marked.     The  head  is  mottled  dark 
gray   and    black    above,   yellowish    under 
197 


H  Swamp  3Beautp 

the  chin,  a  light  gray  stripe  obscurely 
descending  from  the  head  along  the  neck 
for  six  inches ;  below  this  the  neck  and 
breast  are  intensely  black,  with  a  fine 
bottle-green  shimmer.  The  wings,  too, 
are  black,  with  a  gray  band  across  near 
the  shoulder.  Tail  black,  with  a  pale 
yellowish  ash  tip.  I  made  note  of  the 
cat-like  claws,  curved  and  sharp  as  needles, 
which  enabled  it  to  climb  from  the  water 
up  a  tree-bole  or  cypress  root  with  great 
ease.  Its  legs  were  short,  its  feet  flat  as 
a  duck's,  and  its  tail  nearly  a  foot  long. 

In  dropping  from  its  perch  the  snake- 
bird  goes  down  headforemost;  but  some- 
times, while  swimming,  it  dives  backward, 
darting  tail  foremost  out  of  sight;  or  it 
gently  sinks  rearward,  gradually  going 
down  until  only  its  little  sharp  head  is 
above  water.  No  bird,  not  even  the 
loon,  not  even  the  pelican,  is  a  better 
diver.  In  the  cypress  wastes  that  border 
Lake  Okeechobee  I  have  seen  groups  of 
snake-birds  posing  on  the  tallest  tree-tops, 
their  bodies  and  necks  stretched  upward 
and  their  wings  spread  to  full  length  in  the 
198 


H  Swamp  3Beaut^ 

sun.  The  specimen — for  it  is  mounted 
now — that  I  have  been  describing  did 
this  singular  bit  of  attitudinizing  for  me 
on  the  cypress  knee,  holding  its  bill  agape 
meanwhile,  its  little  eyes  shining  hke  deep- 
set,  reddish  jewels. 

In  one  respect  the  snake-bird — a  pity 
the  beautiful  creature  has  a  name  so 
squirmy! — is  fortunate.  His  haunts  will 
probably  never  be  destroyed  by  man. 
The  swamps  and  everglades  of  the  low 
country  seem  destined  to  hold  forever 
their  dreary  perfection  of  damp,  desolate, 
irreclaimable  loneliness,  where  Plotus  an- 
hhiga  may  live  on,  keeping  up  its  strange, 
serpent-like  wrigglings,  and  decoying  en- 
thusiastic naturalists  deep  into  the  mire 
and  quicksands  beside  the  dull,  coffee- 
colored  waters.  And  how  the  mosquitos 
do  sing  and  swarm  there !  How  the  moc- 
casin-snakes do  writhe  and  threaten! 
Worst  of  all,  how  the  huge  rattlesnakes 
jar  their  linked  tails  and  strike  venomously 
home  from  their  coils  under  the  dwarf 
palmetto-leaves! 

But  the  mocking-birds  are  not  far  away. 
199 


H  Swamp  Beauty 

A  short  tramp  brings  them  within  ear- 
range,  so  that  I  know  just  how  soon  to 
expect  an  orange-grove  or  a  fig-orchard. 
It  is  good  to  blow  out  of  me  all  the  swamp- 
whiffs  I  have  inhaled,  and  let  them  give 
place  to  fruity  wafts  and  bloomy  puffs 
borne  along  by  a  saltish  sea-breeze.  And 
when  I  meet  a  jolly-looking  negro  boy,  who 
gazes  interrogatively  at  my  dangling  snake- 
bird  and  says,  "Gwine  to  eat  'im,  boss?" 
— when  that  happens,  a  good  laugh  rounds 
up  a  right  pleasant  incident ;  and  presently, 
emerging  from  the  wood,  I  look  seaward 
over  a  flat  waste  to  where,  on  the  water's 
rim,  glitters  the  crescent  outline  of  the 
town,  with  its  slender  church-spires,  its 
variegated  roofs,  and  its  gardens  of  massed 
and  wind-tossed  foliage.  I  take  off  my 
cap  and  serenely  mop  a  flushed  face,  while 
all  the  beauty,  all  the  charm,  and  all  the 
subtle  and  inexplicable  strangeness  of  the 
drowsy  South  steal  through  me  like  a 
succession  of  gentle  yet  thrilling  waves  — 
a  flood  of  inspiration  for  which  a  poet  or 
a  painter  would  sell  his  birthright  and 
become  a  glorious  outcast. 
200 


1In  tbe  mooi^e  voitb  tbe  Bow 

SOME  person  —  a  pessimist  —  said,  just 
when  I  do  not  know,  that  the  stories 
were  all  told  before  Homer's  time.  Another 
added  the  remark  that  there  were  but  five 
stories  to  begin  with.  Art  doubtless  has 
limitations  which  confine  strict  originality 
to  a  very  small  space;  but  nature  defies 
all  peripheries — she  browses  at  will  up  the 
slopes  of  countless  Helicons.  Her  stories 
are  in  number  as  the  sands  of  the  sea,  as 
the  leaves  of  summer,  as  the  changes  on 
sky  and  clouds  when  the  wind  aloft  is 
strong  and  the  sun  burns  bonfires  along 
the  hills  that  notch  the  horizon.  Books 
may  be  but  variations  of  ancient  monot- 
onies; I  do  not  deny  it.  Men  may  have 
nothing  new  under  the  sun  to  think,  to 
say,  to  write — the  poor  fellows ;  it  is  little 

20I 


Hn  the  Moob0  wttb  tbe  3Bovv 

that  I  care.  Give  me  a  fortnight  of  free- 
dom in  the  woods  of  spring  and  I  will  find 
a  freshness  infinitely  changeable,  an  origi- 
nality varying  with  every  puff  of  the  breeze. 
Give  me  an  outing — you  may  as  well,  for 
otherwise  I  shall  take  it  by  force;  I  must 
have  it.  And  what  is  an  outing  in  the 
green  woods  to  him  who  bears  not  the 
longbow? 

Now  if  you  ask  why  the  longbow  is  to 
be  lugged  in,  I  answer — because.  It  goes, 
or  I  stay.  I  would  rather  delve  at  my 
desk,  with  the  good  yew  unstrung  stand- 
ing there  in  the  corner  beside  the  ancient 
tall  clock,  than  to  undertake  a  ramble  in 
the  hill  country  without  that  trusty  mono- 
chord  across  my  arm.  We  have  been  boon 
companions  these  many  years,  my  bow 
and  I,  and  it  is  now  too  late  for  a  change 
of  relations.  We  go  together  into  green 
solitudes,  and  find  places  where  Diana's 
footprints  are  yet  almost  visible,  the  spot, 
still  warm,  where  Pan  took  his  noonday 
nap. 

I  am  usually  in  the  low  country  of  the 
South  when  a  desire  for  the  hilly  region 
202 


Hn  tbe  Moo^s  wttb  tbc  Bow 

begins  to  stir  in  me.  As  the  birds  migrate 
so  do  I.  Where  the  palms  and  pines,  the 
magnoHas  and  the  Hve-oaks  flourish,  there 
I  go  in  winter.  When  a  green  wave  of 
exploding  buds  and  rapidly  developing 
leaves  rolls  gently  northward,  beginning 
late  in  March  on  the  Gulf-coast  and  reach- 
ing Indiana  with  the  last  days  of  April,  I 
try  to  keep  pace  with  the  oscines.  Steam 
and  sleeping-cars  aid  me  at  need,  when 
the  springtide  makes  a  flower-sprent  dash, 
or  when  the  migrant  songsters  put  on  a 
spurt  of  speed  here  and  there. 

All  the  winter  I  have  been  entertained 
by  the  wild  fowl  of  the  sea,  the  shore-birds, 
the  waders,  the  divers,  the  long-legged  in- 
habitants of  marsh  and  rushy  swale.  I 
have  lost  some  valuable  arrows  in  sloppy 
jungles  and  on  miry  bayou  shores,  where 
I  shot  at  rare  specimens  and  got  them  not. 
Even  the  big  sea  opened  its  mouth  and 
swallowed  a  shaft  or  two,  pile,  feathers, 
and  all ;  for  the  pelicans  flew  low  over  my 
boat,  flapping  lazily,  fine  targets  to  tempt 
the  most  saintly  archer.  The  man  at  the 
helm  looked  asquint  at  me  and  grinned 
203 


Hn  the  Mco^5  wltb  tbe  Bow 

when  my  purring  missile  went  a  hand's 
breadth  ahead  of  the  pelican,  causing  it  to 
back  its  vast  wings  and  somersault  rear- 
ward in  ecstatic  surprise. 

But  the  arrow — how  it  slanted  away  on 
high  to  curve  slowly  and  dart  with  accel- 
erated speed  down,  far  ofT,  into  the  cream- 
ing whitecaps !  Some  men  take  wine  to 
stimulate  them,  some  take  tobacco,  some, 
like  Coleridge  and  De  Quincey,  even 
opium ;  but  I  take  a  bow-shot  at  a  bird. 
Daniel  Webster  Hked  to  play  a  fish ;  other 
great  men  have  delighted  in  a  roaring  gun 
when  the  bevies  rose  from  the  stubble  :  for 
greatness,  too,  takes  a  joy  out  of  savage 
sport.  Still,  for  myself,  in  all  humbleness 
be  it  said,  let  the  solitude  of  a  wilderness  of 
wood  or  water  surround  me,  and  let  me 
hear  my  bow's  one  fine  note,  followed  by 
the  long,  low  hiss  of  my  arrow.  Some 
have  called  this  savagery  ;  others  have  seen 
in  it  a  dangerously  attenuated  estheti- 
cism ;  but  heathen  coarseness,  or  the  last 
refinement  of  artificial  ideality, — be  it 
whatever  it  is, — I  hke  it  better  than  wine, 
tobacco,  cards,  the  theater,  or  any  other 
204 


iFn  tbe  Moobs  witb  tbe  :fl5ow 

indoors  excitement — yea,  even  far  better 
than  polo,  golf,  or  tennis!  But  do  not 
set  me  down  as  one  who  decries  the  taste 
of  his  brother.  Go  on,  O  friends,  in  the 
way  you  best  enjoy.  As  for  me,  up  from 
the  breezy  low  country  of  the  heron  and 
the  ibis,  out  of  the  plashy  everglades 
where  skulk  the  gallinule  and  the  limpkin, 
away  from  the  coffee-colored  streams 
where  the  snake-bird  dives  and  wriggles, 
and  where  the  least  bittern  croaks,  I  go 
my  way  once  more  to  the  greening  hills  of 
the  Carolinas. 

I  have  sent  home  an  order  to  a  certain 
deft  whittler  of  arrow  steles  whom  I  know 
in  Indiana,  and  he  will  forward  a  sheaf  to 
meet  me  at  a  town  in  a  valley  not  far  from 
a  mountain's  toe,  where  a  fretful,  chill  brook 
prances  over  smooth  boulders  on  its  jour- 
ney to  kiss  a  river.  There,  too,  birds  will 
join  me.  I  imagine  I  can  hear  them  now ; 
but  in  fact  it  is  yet  a  month  before  we 
shall  be  there.  Meantime  I  sail  north- 
westward across  the  Gulf  to  the  Terre  Aux 
Boeufs  for  a  few  days'  shooting;  then  to 
the  Rigolets  and  the  marshes  of  Borgne, 
205 


Hn  tbe  MooDs  witb  tbe  IBow 

where  it  is  good  for  the  bowman  to  stray ; 
the  next  flight  being  by  rail,  through  Mo- 
bile and  Montgomery  to  the  Sand  Moun- 
tain's southern  slope,  whence,  after  three 
days  given  wholly  to  delight,  away  from 
the  iron-mills  of  Birmingham  I  flash,  clip- 
ping a  corner  off"  North  Georgia,  to  come 
plump  against  old  Yonah  at  the  feather- 
end  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  where  many  well- 
heads bubble  in  lonely  dells,  and  where  the 
rhododendron  in  due  season  paints  its 
cheeks  to  delight  the  wind. 

Night  had  fallen  when  the  train  slowly 
curved  into  the  little  mountain  village.  A 
rickety  trap  bore  me  and  my  tackle  to  a 
forlorn  hotel,  which  was  perfumed  with 
kerosene  not  unmixed  with  jowl  and  cab- 
bage ;  but  the  room  they  gave  me  was  airy, 
and  the  bed  had  sheets  as  clean  and  white 
as  a  water-lily's  petals.  The  young  man 
who  sported  a  rhinestone  bosom-pin  be- 
hind the  office  desk  looked  benignly  upon 
me  after  I  had  registered,  and  presently 
he  said: 

"A  package  in  our  care  for  you." 
It  was  my  arrows  from  Indiana,  a  bundle 
206 


Hn  tbe  Moo^s  witb  tbe  JBow 

to  gladden  my  heart.  Two  or  three  com- 
mercial travelers  eyed  my  bow  in  its  green 
cover  and  my  quiver  tied  up  in  its  bag, 
— sized  me  up,  as  they  would  have  ex- 
pressed it, — and  yawned.  They  thought 
they  knew  me,  but  they  were  greatly  mis- 
taken. It  was  I  who  knew  them,  a  jolly 
lot,  each  one  trying  to  "figure  up"  his 
expense-account  so  as  to  cover  the  cost  of 
seeing  Jeflferson  as  Rip  Van  Winkle  in 
Atlanta,  and  losses  at  billiards  in  Knoxville, 
with  a  reasonable  certainty  of  having  it 
audited  and  passed  at  the  home  office. 

Next  morning  I  was  up  at  the  crack  of 
dawn,  having  expressed  my  luggage  forty 
miles  by  rail  deeper  into  the  hills,  so  that 
I  could  be  foot-free  to  tramp  with  my 
tackle.  Early  risers  who  had  come  forth 
into  the  main  clay  street  of  the  town 
looked  at  me  as  at  some  outlandish  being, 
what  time  I  strode  rapidly  past  them,  my 
bow  uncovered,  my  quiver  at  my  hip,  my 
trousers  inside  my  long  stockings,  and  my 
Httle  field-glass  swung  under  my  right 
arm.  A  big  butcher,  standing  in  a  low 
door  under  the  sign,  "  Meat  Market," 
207 


IFn  tbe  moobs  wltb  tbe  Bo\o 

hitched  up  his  white  apron  and  gave  me 
a  carnivorous  stare,  while  his  heavy  under- 
jaw  lolled  on  his  breast. 

In  the  east  the  sun  wavered  amid  a 
drifting  purphsh  film,  like  a  huge  cherry- 
red  bubble  shot  with  iridescent  fire.  It 
seemed  slowly  to  wax  hot  and  refulgent 
as  I  left  the  town  behind  me,  and  when 
presently  the  tilled  fields  opened  on  either 
hand,  great  beams  flashed  across  them, 
the  meadow-larks  twinkling  here  and  there 
like  sparks  flung  up  from  the  kindling 
ground.  Some  crows  occupied  fence- 
stakes  in  the  distance,  or  walked  in  the 
newly  opened  corn-furrows  with  a  peculiar 
wagging  gait.  It  was  poor  soil  the  farm- 
ers were  plowing;  but  it  looked  fresh,  and 
sent  forth  a  pungent  fragrance  of  broken 
sassafras  roots  mixed  with  that  subtle 
effluence  which  goes  by  the  name  of 
*'  outdoors  air." 

Under  the  spur  of  a  desire  to  reach  the 
wooded  hills  once  more,  I  cast  the  little 
meandering  road  behind  me  as  if  I  had 
been  unwinding  it  from  a  spool.  One 
considerable  frame  farm-house,  flanked 
208 


1Fn  tbe  TRIloobs  wttb  tbe  3Bow 

by  liberal  barns,  had  a  thrifty,  generous 
look. 

There  was  a  spring  of  crystal  limestone 
water  bubbling  under  the  hill,  down  to 
which  a  path  zigzagged  from  the  kitchen. 
A  milk-house  of  rough  masonry  with  a 
mossy  roof  nestled  among  willow-trees 
hard  by.  This  farmstead,  however,  was 
the  last  outpost  of  generous  living  and  up- 
to-date  comfort.  The  realm  of  log  cabins 
and  mountain  civilization  lay  beyond.  I 
felt  the  change  when  I  heard  a  plowman 
sing  out,  "Way  hare!"  to  his  lazy  horse. 
The  mountaineers  all  say  "  Way  hare  "  for 
"  Whoa  haw  "  when  driving  their  teams  in 
the  field ;  and  some  of  them  yell  out  a  coun- 
trified oath,  enforced  with  a  mighty  jerk  of 
the  single  rope  that  serves  as  driving-line. 
You  may  smile,  but  to  me  there  is  some- 
thing ineffably  comforting  and  sweet  in 
those  bucolic  sounds — the  lowing  of  cows, 
the  bleating  of  sheep,  the  crowing  of 
cocks,  and  the  **  Gee-erp  ther' — way  hare ! " 
of  the  lank  and  honest  mountaineer. 

Entering  the  foot-hills,  I  slackened  my 
pace,  looking  about  for  an  eligible  place 
''J  209 


ITn  tbe  TOooDs  wttb  tbe  Bow 

to  make  my  headquarters.  I  noted  with 
delight  that  the  cabins  were  far  apart,  sep- 
arated by  wooded  hills  and  hollows,  where 
a  fine  vernal  tenderness  was  spreading  in 
many  shades  of  green.  In  places  violets 
grew  so  abundantly  that  the  ground  looked 
as  if  a  bit  of  sky  had  fallen  so  hard  that 
the  impact  had  made  froth  of  it ;  and  these 
spots  were  sometimes  offset  by  beds  of 
rose-purple  claytonias.  The  road  dwin- 
dled to  a  mere  desultory  cartway,  which 
finally  led  me  to  the  cabin  of  one  Thomas 
Shamly,  who  took  me  in  and  entertained 
me  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  giving  me  a 
little  room  on  the  end  of  a  lean-to  veranda 
to  sleep  in ;  and  next  morning  he  hitched 
his  little  mules  to  his  rickety  wagon  and 
hauled  me  nine  miles  to  the  place  of  Simp- 
son Jarvis,  "  over  on  the  crick,"  as  Mr. 
Shamly  remarked,  "  an'  ye  kin  feesh  ther' 
consid'ble."  He  mistook  my  bow  for  a 
fishing-rod,  and  yet  was  not  satisfied  to 
rest  upon  that  theory.  While  we  jolted 
along  the  dim,  stony,  root-matted  road,  he 
made  many  indirect  attacks  upon  my  reti- 
cence;  wherefore  it  pleased  me  at  last  to 

2IO 


Hn  tbe  MoobB  witb  tbe  Bow 

enlighten  him  by  a  practical,  not  to  say- 
spectacular,  demonstration.  He  was  a 
man  fashioned  with  a  stoop  of  the  shoulders 
and  a  lank  body,  topped  off  with  a  narrow, 
sandy  head,  which  wore  reddish  throat- 
whiskers  set  on  Hke  a  thin  ruffle  or  ruche 
under  the  chin  and  jaws.  When  his  little 
mules  came  to  a  ford  in  a  small  stream  and 
were  afraid  to  enter,  he  fell  into  a  rage, 
stormed  at  them,  belaboring  them  with  a 
gad.  The  great  noise  he  made  startled  a 
bird  from  a  sand-bar  to  the  left  of  us,  and 
it  flew  a  little  way  up  the  brook,  where  it 
dropped  down  again  at  the  edge  of  a  pool 
behind  some  stones. 

At  the  first  glimpse  I  knew  it  was  not 
a  bird  usually  found  in  the  mountains,  and 
I  was  so  eager  to  secure  it  that,  with  a 
single  compound  motion,  I  slipped  three 
arrows  from  my  bag,  flung  myself  over 
the  sideboard  to  the  ground,  and  braced 
my  bow.  Mr.  Shamly  was  too  busy  bast- 
ing his  hydrophobic  mules — lashing  them 
with  his  tongue  and  slashing  their  backs 
with  the  gad — to  observe  my  movement; 
and  when  at  last  the   team  plunged  into 

21  I 


M  tbe  XPdoobs  witb  tbe  3Bow 

the  water  scarcely  hoof-deep  and  stopped 
to  drink,  none  the  worse  for  flogging  or 
fright,  I  was  sneaking  in  a  curve  to  take 
cover  behind  a  clump  of  low  bushes.  Then 
I  felt  Mr.  Shamly  look  at  me  and  heard 
him  say : 

"Wall,  dern  sich  a  feller!  They  's  no 
feesh  in  this  yer  crick." 

I  crept  until  I  could  peep  around  a 
fringe  of  the  bushes.  Yonder  stood  the 
bird,  a  fine,  sheeny  fellow,  well  poised  on 
his  sturdy  legs,  showing  glints  of  reddish 
yellow,  brown,  black,  gray,  white,  and  ash. 
It  was  a  Canute  sandpiper,  doubtless  a 
straggler  blown  there  by  some  wind  of 
accident — a  most  interesting  bird,  with 
an  incomplete  biography  to  which  I  hope 
in  the  long  run  to  contribute  some  facts. 
Just  now  I  wish  to  brag  of  a  good  shot. 

Eighteen  yards  is  a  very  short  range, 
even  for  a  bow,  and  at  that  distance  the 
knot  — the  common  name  of  our  Canute 
sandpiper — looked  strikingly  large ;  in  real- 
ity its  measurements  were :  length  about 
eleven  inches,  extent  twenty-one  inches. 
It  stood  on  a  bit  of  wet  sand  beside  a  rock 

212 


1In  tbe  moo^s  mtb  tbe  3Bo\v 

at  the  water's  edge,  and  by  certain  sway- 
ing motions  of  its  neck  and  body  I  knew 
it  would  fly  from  the  slightest  noise.  I 
knelt  in  order  to  shoot  under  some  dan- 
gling twigs. 

"Wall,  I  jes  be  dad  burn!"  commented 
Mr.  Shamly,  in  the  most  approving  accent, 
when  I  let  go  a  blunt  arrow,  and  saw  it 
bowl  the  game  over,  knocking  it  clean  from 
behind  the  rock  into  the  field  of  Mr. 
Shamly's  absolutely  amazed  vision. 
"  Ef  he  did  n't  kill  it  I  'm  er  gourd ! " 
By  this  time  I  had  crossed  the  stream 
at  a  riffle,  and  was  holding  my  bird  high, 
gazing  upon  it  triumphantly,  as  a  fisher- 
man does  who  exalts  a  two-pound  bass 
and  mutters :  "  Four  pounds  and  a  half,  if 
It  's  an  ounce!"  Then  Mr.  Shamly  drove 
his  mules  with  the  clattering  and  dripping 
wagon  through  the  stony  ford.  If  possible, 
he  was  prouder  than  I  of  the  successful 
shot.  Throughout  the  rest  of  our  journey 
together,  he  talked  volubly ;  in  the  main 
he  was  telling  me  about  his  own  prowess 
with  the  "  bow  'n'  arry  "  when  he  was  a 
boy.  He  could  hit  a  bird  every  time,  and 
213 


Hn  tbe  Moo^s  wltb  tbe  Mo\o 

"  ez  fur  squ'ls,  they  's  my  meat  jes  w'en- 
ever  I  wanted  'em ! "  By  the  time  we  had 
reached  the  trail  where  he  was  to  dump 
me,  Simpson  Jarvis's  place  being  over  a 
hill  not  practicable  for  a  wagon,  I  was  well- 
nigh  convinced  that  what  I  knew  about 
archery  had  been  forgotten  by  Mr.  Shamly, 
and  I  bade  him  good-by  on  the  verge  of 
envy. 

No  sooner  was  I  afoot  and  alone  once 
more  than  I  heard  some  bird  twitterings, 
and  above  all  one  welcome  note.  Almost 
immediately  I  was  in  pursuit  of  a  specimen, 
a  blue  grosbeak,  and  the  rattling  of  the 
Shamly  vehicle  died  away  in  the  distance 
while  I  clambered  over  rocks  and  bestrode 
bushes  to  keep  the  bird  in  sight  until  I 
could  get  a  shot  at  it.  In  my  notes  the 
whole  grosbeak  family  would  be  complete 
if  I  should  get  this  one.  Your  bird-stu- 
dent has  his  cupidities,  and  your  archer 
backs  them  with  his  tackle.  This  mixing 
of  ornithology  with  bow-shooting,  however, 
has  its  limitations.  If  I  had  borne  a  gun 
the  blue  grosbeak  would  have  been  mine. 
As  it  was  I  shot  five  or  six  shots  and  did 
214   ' 


Hn  tbe  MooDs  wttb  tbe  :fiSow 

not  touch  a  feather ;  but  the  deHght  of  it 
still  haunts  me. 

Two  miles  of  a  walk  over  the  hill,  to 
avoid  a  roundabout  wagon-drive  of  thir- 
teen, proved  exhilarating.  Half  the  way 
I  soared,  by  a  winding,  desultory  path, 
and  perched  myself  on  a  scarred  and 
splintered  rock,  where  I  ate  my  luncheon 
of  corn-bread  and  ham.  It  was  a  dry, 
bald  spot  overlooking  a  fair  valley,  deep 
in  the  midst  of  which  the  little  homestead 
of  Mr.  Jarvis  seemed  to  slumber  while  I 
gazed.  Just  below  me  the  forest  was 
stunted  and  thin ;  but  farther  down  a  great 
show  of  greenery,  with  upHfted  masses  of 
variegated  tree-tops,  increased  until  the 
little  river  in  the  emerald  trough  could  be 
seen  only  here  and  there  shining  up  with 
great  allurement. 

When  presently  I  began  to  swoop  down 
the  fell,  there  came  up  to  meet  me  a  flick- 
er's merry  call  and  the  voice  of  a  Balti- 
more oriole.  The  breeze,  too,  seemed 
puffing  fragrantly  slantwise  toward  the  sky 
from  out  the  depth  of  the  valley.  Soon 
enough  I  was  under  superb  arches  of  oak, 
215 


1fu  tbe  moo^s  witb  tbe  JBovv 

hickory,  and  pine,  through  which  blue 
patches  of  sky  gleamed  brilliantly.  Going 
down-hill  proved  tiring,  however,  and  I 
was  glad  to  rest  on  an  old  log  near  the 
verge  of  a  cliff,  which  dropped  almost  ver- 
tically fifty  or  more  feet,  so  that  I  could 
look  with  level  gaze  into  tree-tops  of  im- 
mense size.  Far  below  I  saw  my  path 
sinking  like  an  irregular  stairway  along 
the  steep.  It  was  a  good  place  for  loung- 
ing— just  breezy  enough  to  soothe,  and 
yet  not  chill,  a  place  given  over  to  such 
solitude  as  the  poets  rhapsodize  about. 
I  hung  one  leg  over  the  log,  and  felt  too 
comfortable  to  be  bothered  with  unbra- 
cing my  bow.  In  this  attitude  I  was  sitting 
when  a  hoarse  voice  startled  me,  not  with 
fear  or  surprise,  but  with  a  thrill  of  joy. 
It  was  a  long-lost  voice,  the  croak  of  a 
raven,  and  in  a  moment  the  great  black 
flash,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  shot  across  a  rift, 
with  a  fine  swish  of  feathers  shimmering 
blue-green  over  their  intense  inky  dark- 
ness. A  raven,  and  it  lit  only  forty  yards 
away,  a  trifle  above  the  level  of  my  eyes, 
on  a  pine  bough  close  to  the  tree's  bole. 
216 


Hn  tbe  Moobs  witb  tbe  JBovv 

At  the  first  note  from  that  doughty 
bird  I  was  ready  for  a  shot — over-ready, 
indeed,  with  my  heart  shaking  my  jerkin 
and  shortening  my  breath.  When  you 
shoot  at  a  raven,  let  me  tell  you,  you  shoot 
in  a  hurry  ;  for  it  has  not  the  habit  of  pos- 
ing as  a  target.  Up  went  my  bow  and 
away  spun  the  arrow.  Not  carelessly,  but 
without  hesitation,  and  certainly  in  a  very 
fever  of  desire  to  slay,  I  drove  that  shot, 
and  with  perfect  aim.  There  is  not  a 
doubt  that  it  would  have  been  a  center  hit 
but  for  an  insignificant  twig,  which  turned 
the  pile  upward,  so  that  it  whacked  on  a 
pine-knot,  the  flintiest  of  all  woods,  that 
projected  a  foot  above  the  raven's  back. 

It  was  meant  for  tragedy,  but  the  twig 
made  comedy  of  it.  **  Quoth  the  Raven, 
'Nevermore!'"  My  arrow  went  somer- 
saulting sidewise  to  some  distance,  and 
then  fell  down,  from  bough  to  bough,  un- 
til at  last,  clear  of  the  tree-tops,  it  righted 
itself  feather  uppermost,  and  so  reached 
the  path  far  below,  sticking  there  slantwise 
in  the  ground.  Memorable  to  a  degree 
was  the  glare  of  instantaneous  amazement 
217 


1fn  tbc  Moot)0  wttb  tbe  Bow 

which  shot  from  the  raven's  eyes,  while 
the  feathers  on  its  throat  stood  out  sepa- 
rately, and  its  wings  jumped  to  their  work 
with  a  thrashing  sweep  through  the  foliage. 
Gone  like  a  sable  ghost,  or  a  plumed  de- 
mon, Corv7is  corax  was  seen  no  more,  heard 
no  more,  during  all  my  stay  in  the  hill- 
country.  Doubting  naturalists  may  sug- 
gest to  me  that  it  was,  after  all,  only  a 
crow — that  the  ravens  are  extinct  in  the 
Blue  Ridge  wilderness;  but  a  raven  it  is 
in  my  notes,  a  raven  it  was,  a  raven  it 
must  stand.  Maybe  the  botanists  will  no 
more  credit  me  when  I  state  that  I  found 
purple  lupines  on  a  sandy  slant  blooming 
above  the  violets  and  claytonias.  It  was 
a  sunny  southeastern  slope  of  warm,  light, 
arenaceous  soil,  a  place  for  precocious 
growth.  The  beautiful  pea-like  flowers 
nodded  me  a  welcome.  I  plucked  a  fine 
raceme  and  stuck  it  in  my  cap,  not  without 
an  impression  that  such  a  plume  added 
a  certain  debonair  accent  to  my  make-up, 
which  Mr.  Jarvis  doubtless  observed  when 
he  met  me  at  his  woodpile  just  outside  the 
rickety  fence  in  front  of  his  cabin. 
218 


In  tbe  Moot)s  wttb  tbe  JBow 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment  before  he 
responded  to  my  salute.  A  queer  half- 
smile  faltered  in  the  corners  of  his  tobacco- 
stained  mouth.  There  was  something  dry 
and  jocular  in  his  countenance  ;  indeed,  the 
whole  man  somehow  suggested  an  old 
leather  poke  full  of  desiccated  conundrums. 
His  head  was  a  ball  of  wrinkles ;  even  in 
his  hair  the  skin  showed  a  corrugated  net- 
work ;  and  his  constricted  neck,  his  hands, 
his  wrists,  and  his  chest,  where  the  faded 
blue  cotton  shirt  lay  open,  were  of  like 
structure.  Out  of  his  narrow,  pale-gray 
eyes  came  a  friendly  twinkle. 

"  Howdy ! "  he  drawled,  kicking  absently 
at  a  chunk  of  wood.  "  Wha'  'd  ye  come 
f'om,  anyhow?  "  He  looked  at  me  askew 
and  chuckled  vaguely. 

This  was  a  pretty  free  inquiry,  I  thought ; 
but  these  mountaineers  have  their  way ; 
it  is  always  best  to  be  just  as  breezy  to 
them  as  they  are  to  you,  and  long  acquain- 
tance with  their  peculiarities  served  my 
turn.  I  gave  Jarvis  as  good  as  he  sent, 
not  dreaming  that  he  knew  me. 

"  I  came  from  where  I  was  at,"  I  re- 
219 


m  tbe  MOO&S  witb  tbe  3Bow 

plied,  "  and   I   've  got   to  where   I   want 
to  be." 

He  spat  sidewise. 

''Ya-a-s,"  he  drawled;  "hit  air  not 
sich  a  bad  place  fer  yer  sort.  Kem  in,  kem 
in." 

"  I  air  pooty  nigh  as  good  a  sort  as 
you,"  I  responded.  "  But  I  'm  thirsty 
clean  down  ter  my  toes." 

"  Nary  drap  in  the  jug,"  he  said  with 
a  husky  sigh,  "  an'  ain't  been  fer  a  week." 

"  It  's  water  I  want.  Is  the  well  dry, 
too?" 

"  Got  nary  well.  Spring  's  all  right. 
Go  down  thar;  ye  '11  find  er  gourd;  help 
yerself." 

He  made  a  motion  with  his  pungled 
head  to  indicate  the  direction,  and  when 
I  went  he  followed.  After  I  had  filled  the 
parched  void  in  me,  he  leered  and  said  : 

"  Ye  've  fergot  me.  'Member  w'en  I 
fiddled  at  Spivy  Fuller's  dance,  an*  ye  was 
so  crazy  'bout  the  little  Widder  Aikins?" 

As  if  a  screen  in  my  brain  had  been 
shifted  by  his  words,  suddenly  I  recol- 
lected. 

220 


irn  tbe  MooDs  wltb  tbe  3Bow 

"  Why,  Jarvis,  you  old  fraud !  How 
did  you  ever  get  away  up  here?" 

Through  the  hurly-burly  of  twenty  years 
I  harked  back.  The  fiddling  and  the 
shuffling  feet  sounded  amazingly  real  and 
near.  In  an  instant  I  was  squeezing  Jar- 
vis's  hand,  and  we  were  grimacing  at  each 
other  like  two  embarrassed  boys.  Mean- 
time I  heard  him  saying: 

"  An'  ye  still  air  a-shootin*  the  bow  'n* 
arry!      Lawd,  I  'r'  glad  ter  see  ye!  " 

He  was  glad  to  see  me ;  the  beam  from 
his  countenance  and  the  timbre  in  his  voice 
could  not  have  been  counterfeit.  More- 
over, Jarvis  was  not  a  man  to  feign  dehght. 
Nature's  frankness  and  sincerity  were  his ; 
likewise  her  economy  of  special  favors. 

And  so  I  abode  with  him — the  withered 
and  queer  old  bachelor — in  his  ramshackle 
cabin  beside  the  little  river,  through  as 
gay  a  period  as  ever  rounded  itself.  By 
day  I  had  my  will  of  the  birds,  and  of 
evenings  Jarvis  fiddled  and  spilled  his  dry 
humor — it  was  all  honey-sweet,  a  dripping 
comb  of  primitive  joy. 

Many  a  sojourn  like  that  has  been  mine, 
221 


f  n  tbe  Moo^s  witb  tbe  Bow 

and  every  fresh  one  seems,  in  the  time  of 
it,  the  best.  Down  in  the  Terre  Aux 
Boeufs,  years  ago,  when  I  outwitted  a 
scarlet  flamingo,  that  red-letter  bird  of  all 
low-country  sportsmen,  and  bagged  it  with 
a  fine  shot,  the  arrow  stopping  it  short  in 
air;  over  on  the  Rigolets,  when  I  crept 
upon  a  great  blue  heron,  under  cover  of  a 
mere  rush-wisp;  deep  in  the  Okefinokee; 
amid  the  Everglades ;  on  the  strange  bosom 
of  Okeechobee ;  beside  the  darkly  lapsing 
flood  of  the  Kankakee;  and  in  many  an- 
other bowman's  paradise,  where  I  have 
gathered  and  garnered,  there  was  some- 
thing original ;  but  not  one  spot  in  lowland 
or  highland,  from  the  Leelanau  to  the  Kis- 
simmee,  excelled  the  region  in  which  Jar- 
vis  was  master.  Here  I  had  freedom  in 
its  purest  form,  and  here  I  breasted  the 
flood-tide  of  migrating  song-birds,  while 
spying  upon  all  the  resident  species.  Let 
my  note-book, with  its  sketches  jotted  down 
on  the  spot,  speak  awhile  in  testimony  of 
what  happened. 

April  19.     Struck  the  cabin  of  an  ancient  Geor- 
gian  acquaintance   here   by   accident.       Fiddler, 
222 


iFn  tbe  TimooDs  witb  tbe  3Bovv 

droll  and  peculiar;  living  alone  in  cabin  of  tAvo 
bare  rooms  with  open  passage  between.  Shoots  a 
flint-lock  rifle  to  perfection.  Makes  shingles  by- 
hand— saws  off  the  cuts,  rives  them  and  shaves 
them  without  help — ships  them  on  a  raft  down 
the  river.  Happy  as  a  child  and  strong  as  an  ox. 
April  20.  First  day  out  from  Jarvis's.  Got  up 
at  daybreak.  Coffee  and  bacon.  Walked  three 
miles  beside  the  river,  making  list  of  birds.  Saw 
wood-ducks  on  a  back-water  pond— breeding  in 
hollow  trees  near  by.  Killed  a  fine  specimen  of 
the  "least  bittern  "  {Ardetta  exilis),  which  I  needed 
to  complete  a  study.  A  time,  indeed,  I  had  with 
it — an  hour's  campaign  f  How  many  of  this  spe- 
cies I  have  taken  in  the  past  few  years,  and  still 
my  study  is  not  finished !  Jarvis  at  my  heels 
like  a  dog. 

I  give  these  as  examples  of  notes  made 
of  evenings  after  a  day's  tramp.  Actual 
field  sketches,  as  I  jotted  them  down, 
would  be  scarcely  intelligible  to  the  unini- 
tiated reader.  It  must  be  easy,  however, 
to  catch  the  spirit  of  my  outing  from  the 
hint  about  the  killing  of  the  heron.  I 
recall  the  whole  scene,  or  series  of  scenes, 
with  every  minute  circumstance  con- 
nected ;  indeed,  I  look  back  and  see  my- 
self perform,  or  rather  live,  the  incidents 
223 


Hn  tbe  moo^5  wttb  tbe  :©ow 

one  by  one ;  and  the  mountain  air  fans  me, 
the  incipient  greenery  curtains  me  about, 
the  fragrance  has  not  weakened,  the  bird- 
song  is  as  wild  and  free  as  ever. 

There  is  a  part  of  sylvan  archery  which 
defies  description, — a  part  almost  equal  to 
the  whole,  in  fact, — and  just  there  lies  the 
subtle  charm.  To  shoot  a  bow,  or  "  in  a 
bow,"  as  the  old  writers  have  it,  demands 
next  thing  to  impossibility;  you  are  re- 
quired to  do  with  absolute  exactitude 
twenty  things  at  once,  if  the  shot  is  to  be 
good  and  true ;  and  yet  you  so  frequently 
approach  this  perfection  that  your  failures, 
which  are  legion,  count  not  at  all.  In  my 
recorded  scores  afield  there  are  sometimes 
thirty  misses  set  down  against  one  hit ;  yet 
here  and  there  appears  an  entry  like  this: 
"  Crept  three  hundred  yards,  sneaking  from 
cover  to  cover,  to  get  a  shot  at  a  hen- 
hawk.  Finally  had  to  take  an  almost 
hopeless  chance.  Hit  him  just  as  he 
lifted  his  wings  to  fly.  Eighty  paces  to 
the  root  of  the  tree,  where  he  fell  from  a 
bough  sixty  feet  above."  But  some  of  the 
misses,  and  here  I  cannot  explain,  are  set 
224 


f  n  tbe  XRIloobs  vvttb  tbe  Bow 

down  with  as  much  unction  as  the  hits. 
The  archer  shoots  for  the  enjoyment  of  the 
shot,  perhaps,  not  for  the  pleasure  of  bag- 
ging a  bird,  and  he  can  see  his  missile,  can 
actually  measure  its  course,  from  begin- 
ning to  end  of  its  flight.  When  the  shot 
clips  close  to  the  object  aimed  at — when 
the  bird  leaps  aside  and  glares,  or  squats 
flat,  or  jumps  stiff-legged  straight  up — 
there  is  a  thrill  from  the  bow-arm  to  the 
brain,  a  shock  of  delight  not  to  be  put 
into  literature. 

In  the  case  of  the  little  bittern,  just 
mentioned,  there  was  what  tests  an  archer's 
training.  I  found  it  near  the  pond  in  a 
place  where  last  year's  growth  of  cattail 
flags  covered  a  bit  of  bog.  It  rose  and 
flew  twenty  or  thirty  yards,  dropping  again 
into  cover.  The  swale  was  narrow,  with 
solid  places  here  and  there  on  which  I 
could  cross,  and  as  nothing  in  the  nature 
of  the  ground  offered  an  obstacle  to  flight- 
shooting,  I  determined  upon  flushing  the 
bird  and  trying  to  kill  it  on  the  wing. 
Jarvis,  trudging  behind  me,  commented  on 
every  detail  of  my  work  as  it  disclosed  it- 
^5  225 


Hn  the  XPdloo^s  witb  tbe  3Bow 

self,  growing  more  and  more  intensely- 
critical  when  I  missed  shot  after  shot. 
Time  and  again  I  felt  his  breath  on  the 
back  of  my  neck,  so  eager  was  he  to  give 
me  raucously  whispered  advice.  Usually 
the  bird  rose  about  twenty  or  thirty  yards 
distant,  and  was  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  up 
when  I  let  drive.  Shot  at  that  angle,  my 
heavy,  broad-feathered  arrows  would  not 
go  far,  and  I  usually  marked  each  one 
down  and  went  and  got  it  before  shooting 
again.  This  wrought  upon  Jarvis  until  he 
was  actually  quivering  with  excitement, 
as  almost  every  shaft  appeared  to  clip  so 
close  that  daylight  was  obscured  between 
it  and  the  bird — a  simple  illusion  caused  by 
the  rapidity  of  both  flying  objects.  And 
when  at  last  the  hit  was  made,  he  quit  all 
restraint  and  let  himself  go  into  spasmodic 
antics,  yelling  meantime,  and  making  com- 
ments upon  the  wonderful  nature  of  my 
shooting  in  a  voice  and  with  a  facial  ex- 
pression droll  beyond  description. 

I  was  glad  to  get  rid  of  him  presently 
when  he  had  to  return  to  his  work.     Your 
sylvan  archer  gets  on  better  when  absolute 
226 


irn  tbe  Moot)s  witb  tbe  Bow 

loneliness  is  the  atmosphere  he  breathes. 
After  the  disappearance  of  Jarvis  I  felt 
free  to  turn  myself  loose  and  make  a  fine 
stir  in  Arcadia.  The  wildest  shooting 
mood  was  upon  me,  and  whatever  moved 
became  a  target  for  my  shafts.  I  am 
afraid  to  make  a  full  record  of  an  hour's 
business ;  the  wood-pewees  whined  because 
of  my  activity,  and  the  crested  flycatcher 
whistled  dolefully  ;  but  I  laughed  and  shot 
and  made  notes.  The  ozone  seemed  al- 
most too  plentiful  in  that  delicious  moun- 
tain air. 

My  stay  with  Jarvis  added  a  new  note 
to  experience,  not  so  much  on  Jarvis's 
personal  account  as  through  the  accidents 
of  time  and  place.  This  genial  little  val- 
ley in  the  wild  mountains,  with  a  rivulet — 
the  upper  water  of  a  beautiful  river — flow- 
ing down  its  center,  and  bottom-lands 
bordered  with  terraced  and  rock-littered 
fells  on  either  side,  was  a  roadway  over  the 
Blue  Ridge,  up  which,  at  a  leisurely  pace, 
the  singing  and  chirruping  bird-migrants 
wended  northward.  Every  morning  I  was 
out  early  to  get  the  full  benefit  of  their 
227 


irn  tbe  Moobs  witb  tbe  3Bow 

clashing  medleys.  Jarvis,  finding  out  (in 
spite  of  my  best  efforts  to  conceal  it)  that 
I  preferred  solitude  to  company,  cooked  a 
simple  breakfast  every  morning  before  sun- 
rise and  went  to  his  work.  I  often  heard 
his  ax  or  saw  ringing  merrily  as  I  crept 
silently  through  the  woods  and  copses,  or 
sat  at  the  foot  of  some  noble  tree  to  reflect 
and  make  notes.  Once  he  came  upon  me 
asleep  at  noonday,  my  bow  and  quiver 
leaning  against  the  huge  bole  of  a  white 
oak,  the  buttressed  root  of  which  served 
my  head  for  pillow.  His  heavy  footfalls 
awoke  me,  and  my  first  glimpse  of  him 
connected  him  vaguely  with  a  half-remem- 
bered fantastic  dream  of  Arcadia,  satyrs, 
and  fluting,  goatskin-mantled  youths.  In 
a  word,  I  had  been  reading  Theocritus, 
according  to  an  unalterable  habit,  when 
slumber  shut  down  upon  me.  The  little 
dog-eared  book  was  to  Jarvis  a  mystery. 
He  could  read,  but  ''  thet  air  do  not  'pear 
like  nothin*  to  me,"  he  said.  It  was,  in- 
deed, Greek  to  him. 

A  pirogue,  the  most  skittish  craft  that 
ever  danced  on  water,  was  placed  at  my 
228 


irn  tbe  MooOs  witb  tbe  JBovv 

command  by  Jarvis.  In  it  I  made  some 
interesting  voyages  up  and  down  the 
stream  to  study  the  birds  that  haunted  the 
banks  and  water.  Nowhere  else  have  I 
ever  seen  so  many  kingfishers.  They 
checkered  the  air  in  places  with  the  blue 
streaks  of  their  flight,  and  their  chuckling 
cries  were  almost  constantly  in  my  ears. 
Many  wood-ducks,  probably  the  same  I 
saw  about  the  back-water  pond,  flitted  over 
me,  or  rose  from  the  pools  ahead  of  me. 
I  was  tired  of  Jarvis's  eternal  corn-bread 
and  pork,  hungry  for  a  snack  of  game,  and 
so  I  dehberately  broke  the  rule  against 
spring  duck-shooting  to  the  extent  of  bag- 
ging one  beautiful  pair,  or  rather  two  males, 
of  those  toothsome  birds. 

A  negro  tilled  a  part  of  Jarvis's  little 
farm,  a  patch  of  ground  on  each  side  of 
the  river,  which  here  doubled  on  itself 
with  a  short  curve.  The  land  looked  very 
rich,  and  the  part  cleared  was  planted  in 
corn.  The  ducks,  to  avoid  me,  adopted  the 
tactics  of  swinging  around  the  river's  arc ; 
and  then,  when  I  came  in  sight  of  them, 
they  would  cut  across  the  field,  flying  low, 
229 


•ffn  tbe  TKHoobs  witb  tbc  Bow 

and  drop  under  the  bank  of  the  opposite 
stretch  of  the  river.  So  finally  I  tied  my 
pirogue  and  went  afoot  to  try  creeping. 
This,  on  account  of  a  thin  brush  growth  at 
the  edge  of  the  banks,  which  were  in  some 
places  steep  and  high,  offered  a  better 
chance  of  success.  After  an  hour  and  a 
half  of  hard  but  exhilarating  work,  missing 
many  shots  and  losing  four  good  arrows, 
I  killed  my  two  birds  and  bore  them  in 
triumph  to  Jarvis's  cabin.  Here  again  I 
may  take  a  page  or  two  out  of  my  note- 
book: 

Made  a  fine  shot  this  P.M.,  killing  a  wood-duck 
under  the  bank  diagonally  across  the  river,  from 
where  I  stood  full  seventy  yards.  Had  missed 
eleven  shots,  and  gone  miles  back  and  forth,  much 
of  the  time  crawling  from  one  reach  of  the  stream 
to  the  other.  It  actually  looked  as  if  I  could  not 
do  anything  but  shoot  over  a  bird,  or  short  of 
it,  or  to  one  side  or  the  other.  This  sort  of  luck 
is  hard  on  one's  nerv^es.  Found  myself  bathed  in 
perspiration,  mopping  my  face,  as  excited  as  though 
I  had  been  stalking  tigers.  The  ducks  were  not 
very  shy  at  first,  but  shooting  at  them  soon  made 
them  skittish.  Killed  my  first  one  by  an  easy 
plunging  shot — plumped  a  shaft  almost  straight 
downward  upon  its  back  from  a  bluff's  edge.  But 
230 


Hn  tbe  1KIloot)6  wttb  tbe  :fi3ow 

the  second  one  was  a  memorable  prize  on  account 
of  the  circumstances,  which  I  enjoy  thinking  about 
and  recording  while  Jarvis  snores  on  his  bed  in 
the  corner,  and  the  frogs  somewhere  sing  a  grat- 
ing, underground  song.  I  hear  the  sound  of  my 
shot  in  spite  of  these  noises,  a  sort  of  pervading 
sweet  echo,  going,  as  it  were,  from  place  to  place 
in  my  brain,  filling  me  with  a  savage  yet  delicate 
delight.  I  stood  staring  at  my  bird,  just  discovered 
under  the  farther  bank  of  the  stream,  where  it 
evidently  thought  itself  quite  hidden.  A  ray  of 
sunlight  made  its  variegated  side  shine  like  a  clus- 
ter of  gems  seen  through  a  latticework  of  long, 
dry  grass  hanging  down  from  the  bank.  Seventy 
yards  was  the  range,  as  I  reckoned  it  instantane- 
ously while  drawing  the  arrow  up  in  the  bow.  I 
see  now,  just  as  I  saw  then,  all  the  particulars  of 
the  landscape :  the  little  field,  the  trees  and  height 
beyond,  the  narrow,  shallow  river  lapsing  with  a 
gentle  swash,  the  kingfishers  streaking  the  amber 
air,  the  drooping  sear  grass,  the  wood-duck,  and 
the  cool  cavern  of  the  bluff  beyond  it — all  that  I 
saw,  and  yet  my  vision  was  focused  steadfastly  on 
the  bright  spot  at  the  butt  of  the  bird's  gay  wing. 
And  smoothly  slipped  my  shaft  across  my  bow 
until  I  was  aware  of  the  pile's  end  resting  for  the 
tenth  part  of  a  second  almost  even  with  the  bow's 
back.  "Scutch  !  siz-z-z  !  chuff  !  "  The  recoil  first, 
the  whisper  of  the  feather,  a  grayish  line  in  the  air, 
a  low  arch  sprung  from  my  eye  to  the  bird,  and 
then  a  puff  of  feathers. 

231 


•ffn  tbc  tmoobs  witb  tbe  3Bow 

These  two  ducks  and  one  turkey  were 
the  only  table  comforts  added  by  my 
archery  to  the  mensal  comforts  of  the  Jar- 
vis  cabin.  I  bagged  the  gobbler,  with  a 
shot  not  at  all  remarkable,  from  behind  a 
huge  tree.  He  had  just  made  the  exclama- 
tory remark,  '*  Pitt !  pitt ! "  when  I  thumped 
him  over  at  fifteen  yards,  his  legs  actually 
bent  for  a  spring  into  the  air  that  very  mo- 
ment. We  feasted  upon  him  until  his 
bones  were  as  clean  as  water-washed  plane- 
tree  roots.  His  wing-feathers  I  carefully 
plucked  and  saved  for  my  arrows. 

One  day  it  rained  so  that  going  out  was 
not  practicable  until  four  in  the  afternoon. 
Then  the  sun  burst  forth,  and  the  wood 
shook  with  the  merriest  explosion  of  bird- 
song  far  and  near.  A  change  in  the  direc- 
tion and  temperature  of  the  wind  was 
followed  by  a  wonderful  apparent  inten- 
sification of  the  foliage  in  color  and  density 
of  massing.  No  sooner  were  the  boughs 
done  dripping  than  I  went  abroad,  not  to 
shoot,  but  to  stray  and  revel  in  the  fresh- 
ness. Some  of  my  arrows  had  their 
feather-vanes  fixed  in  place  with  a  patent 
232 


1fu  tbe  MooC)s  witb  tbe  JBow 

glue  which  the  dampness  of  the  air  dis- 
solved ;  wherefore,  when  a  squirrel  tempted 
me  sorely,  lo !  a  featherless  shaft  lay  across 
my  bow,  and  my  drawing-fingers  were 
sticky  with  gum  arabic.  From  distance  to 
distance  rattled  the  fine  laughter  of  birds 
making  glee  at  my  discomfiture. 

All  periods,  good  and  bad,  joyous  and 
sorrowful,  come  to  an  end.  Jarvis  had  a 
load  of  shingles  to  haul  by  cart  far  down 
the  river.  He  insisted  upon  having  me 
keep  house  for  him  during  his  considerable 
absence ;  but  I  could  not  consent.  Follow- 
ing a  trail  northeastward  over  a  mountain- 
spur,  I  found  the  highway — an  atrocious 
pair  of  ruts  winding  among  the  rocky 
knobs,  which  would  sometime  lead  me  to 
a  railway-station  where  my  trunk  and  bags 
were  awaiting  me.  And  it  was  a  jolly 
tramp  from  cabin  to  cabin, — not  one  moun- 
tain household  turned  me  away, — a  slow 
and  halting  wander-week,  with  side  excur- 
sions into  bird-haunts,  and  dreamy  resting- 
spells.  Spring  went  apace  with  me;  the 
dogwood  clumps  began  to  flash  their  white 
blossoms;  fragrance  varied  and  strength- 
233 


•ffn  tbe  mioobe  wttb  tbe  Bow 

ened  each  morning;  new  wild-flowers 
sparkled  beside  the  boulders  and  between 
the  rusty  roots  of  the  wayside  trees ;  while 
even  on  the  highest  cliff-fanged  mountain- 
peaks  spread  a  tender  film  of  green. 

A  short  paragraph  in  my  note-book 
runs  thus : 

Came  to  a  pine  wood  thinly  set  on  a  level 
plateau.  Heard  red-cockaded  woodpeckers  at 
work.  Went  to  get  a  specimen  for  study.  They 
were  high  in  the  pine-tops,  mostly  hidden.  Now 
and  again  I  tried  a  shot  at  one  far  aloft,  and  had 
but  the  satisfaction  of  pounding  a  solid  piece  of 
wood  or  clipping  off  a  green  frond.  The  ground 
under  the  trees  was  lightly  covered  with  pine- 
needles,  and  my  arrows  descending  stuck  upright, 
showing  their  gay  feathers  here  and  yonder  clearly 
against  the  russet  background.  In  the  road  a  little 
way  off  a  lank  mountain-boy  sat  on  his  mule  astride 
of  a  grist-bag— he  had  been,  or  was  going,  to  mill 
— and  gazed  at  me  long  and  vacantly. 

Before  I  reached  the  town  where  I  was 
to  take  the  train  for  home  and  work,  I  sat 

Upon  a  lofty  peak,  amid  the  clear  blue  sky, 

as  Mrs.  Hemans  said  it,  and  looked  down 

into     a    wide,    fertile,    well-tilled    valley, 

234 


irn  tbe  imoo^s  witb  tbe  35Sovv 

through  which  flowed  that  lovehest  of 
mountain  rivers,  the  far-famed  French 
Broad.  So  clear  was  the  atmosphere  that 
with  my  glass  I  could  almost  see  the 
separate  bright  leaves  on  the  orchard-trees 
embowering  the  cozy  farm-houses.  The 
prospect  sent  up  to  me  something  Hke  a 
shock  of  civilization,  and  I  felt  a  breath  of 
man's  latest  aspirations,  while  from  far 
away  behind  me  came  the  fading  voice  of 
freedom  and  the  wilderness.  I  vaguely 
feared  to  turn  and  look  back  over  my 
shoulder,  lest  I  should  be  tempted  beyond 
resistance  and  retreat  before  the  counte- 
nance of  thrift  and  traffic. 

But  down  the  airy  slope  I  featly  trod, 
soon  reaching  a  genuine  public  highway, 
smooth  and  broad,  with  beautiful  fields 
rolling  off  on  either  side  in  gentle  billows 
of  rich  brown  soil,  over  which  the  plows 
and  harrows  were  trailing  their  sketchy 
lines,  loosing  an  opulence  of  earthy  odors 
sweet  as  blossom-breath  to  my  nostrils. 
Meadow-larks  sang,  in  clear,  lonesome 
tones,  a  haunting  snatch  which  might  have 
been  blown,  as  "  sweet  sleep  "  was  blown, 
235 


Ifn  tbc  Wioo^s  wttb  tbe  Bow 

from  the  "  lonesome-sounding  reeds " 
(£p7]{j.atot<;  %aXa[ioi<;)  of  the  unknown  Greek 
poet.  Then  a  long  railway-train,  with 
great  billows  of  black  smoke  above  it,  hove 
in  sight,  coming  around  a  mountain's  knee 
to  rush  howling  across  the  river  into  the 
village  beyond  a  wooded  ridge. 

Not  yet  quite  ended,  however,  was  my 
archer's  outing;  its  spirit  flared  up  brightly 
once  again  before  guttering  and  winking 
out.  Where  the  road  crossed  a  brook,  I 
stood  for  a  few  minutes  leaning  on  the 
wooden  rail  of  the  bridge,  idly  watching 
some  minnows  at  play  in  the  clear  swirls 
below.  Always  nature  offers  temptations ; 
a  new  charm,  never  exactly  felt  before, 
comes  with  every  fresh  combination.  A 
little  aquatic  bird — you  may  certainly 
know  the  difference  between  water  species 
and  land  species  by  their  motions — flew 
under  the  bridge  and  passed  on,  just  above 
the  brook's  current.  A  moment  later 
another  followed,  and  both  neatly  curved 
their  line  of  movement  to  coincide  with  the 
stream,  soon  passing  out  of  sight  behind 
some  bushes.  It  was  compulsion ;  I  could 
236 


Hn  tbe  12100^5  wttb  tbe  Bow 

not  even  try  to  resist;  and  without  fixed 
purpose  I  sprang  down  from  the  bridge 
and  gave  chase,  not  to  the  birds  them- 
selves,— the  pursuit  was  of  two  shimmering 
phantoms,  and  they  lured  me  on  and  on, 
— not  with  any  particular  desire  to  shoot, 
but  only  to  go  up  the  stream,  away  from 
the  road,  into  a  new,  untrodden  place, 
where  something  indescribable,  yet  very 
real,  something  I  liked  beyond  expression, 
lingered  and  wavered  and  shone. 

I  had  proceeded  up  the  way  of  the  brook 
not  more  than  two  hundred  yards,  when  I 
saw  my  two  birds  side  by  side  on  a  little 
spit  in  the  middle  of  the  current.  They 
were  odd-looking  forms — small  bodies  on 
long,  stiffly  set  legs.  Under  them  in  the 
water  stood  inverted  duplicates,  and  be- 
hind them  sparkled  the  wavy  reach  of  clear 
brook-bosom,  which  seemed  to  impart  its 
tricksy  motion  to  their  wings  and  necks. 
These  aquatic  birds  certainly  have  pecu- 
liarities like  those  of  water;  the  kinship  of 
life  and  its  habitat  is  one  of  nature's  open 
secrets. 

Instantly  my  dreamy  spell  dissolved,  as 
237 


irn  tbe  moot)s  wttb  tbe  Bow 

ice  In  fire  ;  up  went  my  bow  and  away  sped 
the  arrow.  It  was  preposterous  to  expect 
a  hit  at  that  distance,  but  your  archer  al- 
ways expects  a  hit;  nor  is  his  disappoint- 
ment great  when  expectation  ends  as  it 
ended  then.  For  he  has  learned  the  sweet 
truth  of  that  ancient  saw  :  **  Pursuit  is  more 
enjoyable  than  possession."  One  of  the 
birds  saw  me  getting  ready  to  shoot,  and 
flew.  The  other  one,  however,  stood  its 
ground,  acting  as  if  it  spied  something  in 
the  water  that  it  meant  to  get.  The  dis- 
tance was  so  great  that  I  could  not  be  sure ; 
but  I  could  have  enthusiastically  deposed 
that  the  shaft  struck  exactly  between  that 
doddler's  feet  in  the  sand.  Certainly  it 
knocked  some  pebbles  hither  and  yon. 
And  the  bird  was  so  scared  by  the  stroke 
that,  instead  of  flying,  it  lifted  its  wings,  and, 
as  it  seemed  to  me,  with  its  feathers  all  on 
end  and  its  beak  wide  open,  stared  at  the 
firmly  planted  missile  as  at  an  apparition 
astonishing  beyond  endurance.  Then  it 
sprang  into  the  air  and  zigzagged  crazily 
away. 

A  sparrow-hawk  next  got  my  attention 
238 


1[n  tbe  Moo^9  witb  tbe  IBow 

by  wheeling  around  overhead,  letting  fall 
upon  me  a  bickering  shower  of  keen  notes. 
When  it  lit  upon  a  tall  dead  tree,  I  shot  at 
it  from  behind  a  clump  of  pussy-willows. 
The  sound  of  my  bow,  although  very 
slight,  startled  it,  and  it  came  near  flying 
in  the  way  of  an  arrow  far  out  of  line. 
Every  once  in  a  while  a  bird  actually  thus 
assists  a  poor  shot,  and  bags  itself,  so  to 
say.  I  followed  the  little  hawk  from  tree 
to  tree,  shooting  at  hopelessly  long  range, 
only  to  see  the  arrows  fly,  and  to  hear  the 
long  sighing  note  of  the  feathers  swiftly 
diminish  in  the  distance.  It  was  leisurely 
exercise,  suited  to  the  cool  yet  sunny  and 
dreamy  weather. 

I  walked  across  some  freshly  plowed 
ground,  where  the  young  maize  was  out, 
twi-leaved  and  emerald-bright,  in  clusters 
of  from  two  to  five  plants,  in  hills  about 
three  and  a  half  feet  apart.  The  tilth  was 
fine,  my  boots  sinking  into  it  ankle-deep. 
Here  I  saw  my  first  bluebirds  of  the  sea- 
son fluttering  from  stump  to  stump — the 
field  had  been  recently  cleared  of  a  forest 
— and  blowing  their  tender  flute-phrases. 
239 


irn  tbe  Ximoobs  wttb  tbe  :SBow 

Then  I  entered  a  piece  of  wooded  pasture- 
land  where  the  cows  seemed  to  be  finding 
food,  although  I  saw  little  grass.  Flickers 
darted  up  from  the  ground  here  and 
yonder,  bounding  away  through  the  air, 
their  line  of  flight  showing  a  series  of  long 
undulations ;  and  each  bird  whacked  the 
bole  of  a  tree  and  stuck  there,  a  sheeny 
spot  of  brown  and  gold  speckled  with 
black. 

I  would  not  have  wantonly  killed  one 
of  those  beautiful  creatures  for  any  price ; 
but  I  shot  at  them  from  afar,  just  to  drop 
an  arrow  somewhere  close  enough  to  them 
to  startle  them.  At  a  hundred  yards  I 
could  do  this ;  and  once  it  looked  for  a  mo- 
ment as  if  a  miracle  of  accuracy  or  acci- 
dent were  to  be  compassed ;  for  the  shaft, 
flying  beautifully,  went  curving  over  with 
such  steadiness,  and  in  a  line  so  marvel- 
ously  true,  that  when  it  approached  the 
bird  I  felt  a  compunction  dart  through  my 
mind.  I  thought  it  a  center  shot  until  it 
struck.  The  flicker  was  a  good  hundred 
yards  distant  from  me,  and  I  could  make 
it  out  only  by  its  movements  while  peck- 
240 


Hn  tbe  MooDs  wttb  tbe  Bow 

ing  for  grubs.  The  arrow  appeared  ac- 
tually to  fall  upon  it,  but  it  was  a  miss. 
The  leaves  and  dirt  were  flung  up  by  the 
shaft's  pile,  and  out  of  the  little  dust-jet 
rose  the  flicker  like  a  spurt  of  dull  flame. 
It  was  almost  a  duplicate  of  the  shot  at  the 
doddler.  I  felt  not  a  little  relieved,  glad 
that  I  had  missed,  but  proud  of  the  shot. 
And  that  was  the  closing  incident  of  a 
memorable  outing.  A  few  minutes  later 
I  was  again  in  the  highway,  briskly  tramp- 
ing toward  the  station,  and  that  night  I 
slept  while  rushing  homeward  at  the  rate 
of  sixty  miles  an  hour. 


241  '^ 


fIDontaiQne 

He  puts  his  foot  into  heresies  tenderly,  as  a  cat 
in  water,  and  pulls  it  out  again,  and  still  something 
unanswered  delays  him.— John  Earle. 

GENIUS  is  the  true  fountain  of  youth. 
We  who  but  touch  it  with  finger-tips 
at  utmost  stretch  feel  its  renewing  thrill 
come  to  our  centers  of  enjoyment,  a  sort  of 
electrical  shock  from  an  exhaustless  stor- 
age battery,  centuries  distant  it  may  be, 
set  in  the  world  by  divine  wisdom  or  di- 
vine accident.  Once  or  twice  in  an  age 
comes  a  man  or  a  woman  who  has  this 
perennial  gift,  this  ageless  influence,  and 
imbues  a  book  with  it.  One  of  the  best- 
endowed  of  these  was  Michel,  Seigneur  de 
Montaigne,  who  in  1580  gave  to  the 
printer  and  to  immortality  the  celebrated 
242 


XIln^er  a  Doawoo^  wttb  jflDontalgne 

"Essais,"  or  rather  the  first  two  volumes, 
followed  eight  years  later  by  the  complete 
edition. 

Montaigne  died  on  September  13,  1592. 
Since  then  there  has  been  scarcely  a  mo- 
ment free  of  the  busy  scratching  of  a  pen 
setting  down  comment,  criticism,  notes,  or 
polemical  attack,  with  the  "  Essais  "  for  their 
distinguished  target;  and  it  is,  perhaps, 
the  highest  compliment  to  Montaigne's 
genius  that  we  can  truthfully  say  nothing 
unpleasant  about  these  moths  as  they  dance 
lightly  or  sluggishly  in  the  fascinating 
light  of  a  flame  so  fickle  and  yet  so  strong. 

Yesterday  I  had  an  armful  of  books 
beside  me  in  a  fragrant  woodland  nook 
under  a  dogwood-tree.  Overhead  the 
white  flowers  and  green  leaves  made  a 
tent-roof  of  comforting  quality,  while  I 
read  and  considered,  the  birds  meantime 
dashing  down  upon  me  a  desultory  shower 
of  chirps,  twitters,  squeaks,  and  song-frag- 
ments. Whenever  I  lifted  my  eyes  a 
wing  sparkled  near  or  far.  Sand-lilies 
shook    their    delicate    bells    between    the 


tufts  of  wood-grass. 


243 


mnber  a  Boawoo^  wttb  /IDontaigne 

From  a  Royal  Street  second-hand  book- 
stall I  had  brought  a  large  one-volume 
copy  of  **  Essais  de  Michel  de  Montaigne" 
(1854).  The  pages  were  exquisitely  mil- 
dewed, and  some  former  owner,  probably 
a  priest,  had  marked  and  annotated  many 
passages  not  especially  orthodox.  Three 
or  four  other  books,  all  of  them  about 
Montaigne,  made  up  the  pile,  the  latest 
in  date  being  *'  Michel  de  Montaigne :  A 
Biographical  Study.  By  M.  E.  Lowndes." 
A  book  of  genuine  interest.  Is  it  Miss, 
Mrs.  or  Mr.  Lowndes?  I  do  not  know; 
but  a  womanly  literary  note  predominates 
on  every  page,  wherefore  I  risk  the  fem- 
inine pronoun  in  acknowledging  my  in- 
debtedness. It  is  a  book  densely  packed 
with  well-digested  information  culled  from 
widely  scattered  and,  not  infrequently, 
unexpected  sources.  To  be  sure,  what 
the  French  admirers  of  Montaigne  had 
left  for  any  newcomer  to  pick  at  in  the 
way  of  original  investigation  was  scarcely 
worth  searching  after ;  but  what  this  author 
has  done  will  be  pleasantly  acceptable  to 
English  readers.  She  has  brought  to- 
244 


THu^et  a  H)ogwoo&  wttb  /iDontatone 

gether  in  small  compass  everything  that  is 
of  real  importance,  so  far  as  discovery  has 
gone,  to  the  proper  understanding  of  the 
**  Essais."  She  has  condensed  the  works  of 
M.  Payen  and  the  indefatigable  antiqua- 
rians of  Bordeaux,  comparing  them  with 
those  of  Galy,  Brunet,  Dezeimeris,  Mal- 
vazin,  and  Beuther,  and  she  has  searched 
the  history  of  Montaigne's  time  and  coun- 
try with  intelligence  to  get  the  aid  of  its 
light.  This  beam  of  illumination  made  up 
of  rays  from  many  bits  of  history  is,  in- 
deed, the  best  part  of  her  book,  and  it  will 
be  appreciated  by  every  student. 

The  strictly  critical  part,  which  is  some- 
what piecemeal  in  its  presentation,  being 
sandwiched  between  the  historical  and  the 
biographical  facts,  is  perhaps  the  least 
valuable  in  the  book ;  not  that  it  lacks  the 
interest  of  scholarly  and  thorough  breadth, 
acumen,  and  wisdom,  but  in  the  main 
there  is  nothing  new.  Nor  is  the  literary 
style  especially  attractive.  It  is  dry;  the 
thread  of  the  diction  kinks  itself;  we  come 
upon  no  charming  surprises  of  phrase.  It 
is  all  clear  enough,  sound  enough,  as  com- 
245 


muDer  a  Bogwoot)  witb  ^ontatGue 

position;  but  it  has  few  distinguishing 
claims  as  Uterature.  At  the  end  of  the 
book  there  are  more  than  fifty  pages  of 
notes  embracing  a  large  amount  of  matter 
highly  valuable  to  those  who  have  not 
access  to  the  works  from  which  it  is  taken. 
These  notes  are  mostly  in  French,  or  refer 
to  French  books,  and  they  will  be  found  a 
good  guide  to  the  general  reader,  as  well 
as  to  the  special  student  of  Montaigne 
literature. 

The  author  gently  criticizes  Emerson 
for  ranking  Montaigne  with  representative 
men,  or  rather  objects  to  the  "  American 
looseness  of  terminology  "  by  the  use  of 
which  Emerson  failed  to  make  clear  just 
what  he  meant  by  the  word  "  representa- 
tive "  ;  and  she  goes  on  to  say  that  Mon- 
taigne *'  was  of  that  order  of  mind  which, 
however  readily  active  in  response  to  ex- 
ternal stimulus,  is  wanting  in  the  inner 
springs  of  action,  and  having  neither  the 
coordinating  nor  the  volitional  impulse,  is 
content  to  accept  the  world  fragmentarily, 
as  it  is  presented  in  experience,  and  seeks 
neither  to  remold  it  in  actuahty  to  an 
246 


Tanbet  a  Doawoob  wttb  /iDontatGue 

ideal,  nor  to  reduce  it  to  a  unity  in 
thought."  In  a  word,  Hke  most  critics 
who  have  tried  to  make  more  or  less  of 
Montaigne  than  what  he  made  of  himself, 
she  has  failed  outright  beyond  the  success 
of  mere  theorizing.  But  she  has  not  failed 
in  the  main  aim  of  her  book.  Her  study  of 
Montaigne's  atmosphere  and  surroundings 
is  masterly.  She  shows  us  the  historical 
entourage  of  the  "  Essais  "  as  no  other  single 
writer  has  done,  and  opens  up  with  ad- 
mirable brevity  of  diction  the  local  mines 
of  influence  which  made  the  innate  ephectic 
temper  of  Montaigne  so  effective  in  deal- 
ing with  the  incongruous  materials  that 
he  molded  into  amorphous  yet  immortal 
creation,  high  perched  in  his  circular 
tower-room  the  while.  True  lovers  of 
the  old  Perigord  sage  will  be  grateful  for 
this  book,  glad  to  discuss  it  with  all  good 
library-worms  who  hold  to  the  doctrine 
that  "  il  ne  fault  pas  attacher  le  s9avoir 
a  Tame,  il  I'y  fault  incorporer ;  il  Ten  fault 
pas  arrouser,  il  Ten  fault  teindre  "  ("  know- 
ledge must  not  be  tacked  upon  the  mind, 
it  must  be  blended  in  its  substance;  it 
247 


lOluDer  a  BogwooD  wttb  ^ontalGue 

must  not  merely  sprinkle  it,  but  must  dye 
it ").  And  in  spite  of  the  author's  judg- 
ment to  the  contrary,  such  a  company  will 
easily  class  Montaigne  with  the  divine 
logolepts  who  *'  se  detournent  de  leur 
voye  un  quart  de  heue  pour  courir  apres 
un  beau  mot.'*  It  is  only  when  the 
thought-harrier  and  the  chaser  after  fine 
words  coalesce  that  we  have  a  great  Hter- 
ary  man. 

In  the  best  sense  Montaigne  was  a  great 
literary  man— the  greatest,  perhaps,  whose 
writings  depend  little  or  not  at  all  upon 
a  recognized  form  of  art  for  their  charm. 
He  had  art  and  was  thoroughly  conscious 
of  its  value ;  but  it  was  formless.  His  ori- 
ginality took  no  systematic  turn,  acknow- 
ledged no  plan  established  by  man  or 
Muse ;  yet  he  was,  in  his  way,  as  original 
as  Homer.  In  coming  to  his  work  by  a 
fine  accident  of  genius,  stumbling  upon  it 
in  a  garret,  as  it  were,  he  felt  and  imparted 
the  deHcious  surprise  of  a  child  suddenly 
set  down  amid  an  endless  confusion  of 
toys.  He  caught  up  style ;  but  where  did 
he  find  it  ?  Did  he  absorb  it  in  the  French 
248 


XDlnOer  a  Bogwoob  vvttb  /iDontatane 

capital,  whence  poets,  artists,  philosophers, 
wits,  have  always  brought  away  a  literary 
honey-bag  ready  to  burst  with  good 
things?  Certainly  no  Frenchman  was 
ever  "  Frenchier  "  than  he ;  but  his  boast 
was  that  he  cared  little  for  urban  life,  and 
the  "  Essais  "  have  a  rural,  often  a  rustic, 
flavor,  as  if  prepared  and  dried  by  the 
recipe  our  great-grandmothers  used  in 
preserving  simple  herbs. 

Paris  was  a  filthy  and  muddy  little  city 
in  Montaigne's  day,  quite  distasteful  to 
him,  as  it  was  to  Ronsard  and  other  literary 
notables.  In  fact,  there  could  be  no 
peaceful  and  thoughtful  rest  within  its 
walls.  The  area  was  entirely  given  over  to 
violent  intrigue  and  sudden  calamities. 
Montaigne  went  there  once  in  a  while, 
to  keep  in  touch  with  court  life,  staying 
but  a  few  days,  then  hustling  back  to  his 
estate  and  his  goose-quill.  Presumably 
he  collected  books  during  these  visits. 
The  air  was  sweet  with  the  bouquet  of 
fresh  lyrics  blown  in  from  all  quarters  of 
France.  He  must  have  known  the  rich, 
Hellenic  smack  of  La  Belle  Cordiere's 
249 


mn^ct  a  Bogwoob  wttb  /IDontaionc 

verses,  of  Olivier  de  Magny's  odes,  and 
of  Jacques  Tahureau's  rhymes.  He  tasted 
whatever  offered,  plucked  everybody's 
flowers,  charged  his  diction  with  the 
choicest  words  from  all  the  active  liter- 
ary laboratories.  Ronsard,  Amyot  (if  he 
may  be  listed  here),  D'Aubigne,  Du  Bar- 
tas,  and  a  whole  swarm  of  humming-bees 
filled  his  ears  with  honey-sweet  word-ca- 
dences, melodies,  harmonies,  which  he 
artfully  affected  to  snub  and  refuse. 

But  you  can  never  be  sure  when  he  is 
snubbing,  so  lightly  he  skips  from  one 
mood  to  another.  What  he  seems  averse 
to  to-day  he  makes  eyes  at  to-morrow — 
a  sort  of  fickleness  which  gives  his  pages 
just  the  flickering,  uncertain  light  of  au- 
thentic human  nature. 

It  seems  to  me  [he  rather  casually  remarks] 
that  poetry  has  had  its  turn  in  our  time ;  we  have 
an  abundance  of  good  craftsmen  in  that  calling: 
Aurat  [Daurat],  B^ze,  Buchanan,  I'Hospital,  Mont- 
Dore,  Turnebus.  As  to  the  French,  I  think  that 
they  have  risen  to  the  highest  possible  mark ;  and 
where  Ronsard  and  Du  Bellay  are  at  their  best,  I 
do  not  find  them  far  removed  from  classical  per- 
fection. 

250 


TTln^er  a  Dogwood  witb  /iDontatone 

But    clearly  these    Frenchmen    did    not 
greatly   interest   him. 

It  is  always  appetizing  to  have  a  great 
writer's  opinion  of  his  own  style,  and 
Montaigne,  disingenuously,  I  think,  re- 
marks that  he  sees  no  reason  why  it  is 
any  more  out  of  taste  for  a  writer  to  de- 
scribe himself  than  for  a  painter  to  make  a 
portrait  of  himself.  "  I  have  naturally  a 
jocund  and  intimate  style,"  he  says;  "  but 
its  form  is  my  own."  More  than  once  he 
frankly  confesses  his  heterogeneous,  in- 
distinguishable, and  incalculable  literary 
pilferings.  He  made  his  booty  lawful 
property  by  the  bee's  process  of  honey- 
distiUing;  that  is,  by  passing  it  through 
himself  and  giving  it  his  personal  flavor. 
He  was  aware  of  the  inevitable  modifica- 
tion of  knowledge,  or  science,  by  the  in- 
dividual nature  that  absorbed  it. 

C'est  une  bonne  drogue  que  la  science;  mais 
nulle  drogue  n'est  assez  forte  pour  se  preserver  sans 
alteration  et  corruption  selon  le  vice  du  vase  qui 
I'estuye.  (Science  is  a  good  drug;  but  no  drug  is 
strong  enough  to  preserve  itself  from  alteration  and 
corruption  by  a  fault  of  the  vessel  holding  it.) 
251 


'GlnDer  a  Dogwoot)  witb  /iDontatgne 

The  gaie  science  of  the  troubadours,  still 
madly  pursued  amid  wars  and  plagues,  was 
no  exception ;  he  partook  of  it  and  sophis- 
ticated it  with  the  essence  of  Montaigne. 

It  is  but  carping  to  deny  a  man's  ori- 
ginality by  going  a-nosing  far  along  the 
days,  years,  centuries  behind  him,  sniff- 
ing for  a  scent  of  something  remotely 
similar  to  his  work.  Theocritus  invented 
the  pastoral,  Montaigne  invented  the  es- 
say, Villon  invented  the  personal  ballad. 
Doubtless  Montaigne  had  in  his  library 
many  a  book  of  disquisitions  like  Cicero's, 
of  causeries  like  those  of  Aulus  Gellius, 
and  goodly  editions  of  classics  by  Henri 
Estienne ;  but  in  none  of  these  was  there 
a  model  for  him.  Villon's  enormous  frank- 
ness may  have  captivated  him.  I  can 
imagine  with  what  unctuous  and  grim 
satisfaction  a  man  like  Montaigne  would 
read  "  Regrets  de  la  belle  Heaulmiere," 
*'  Ballade  des  pendus,"  and  even  the 
doubtful  **  Les  repues  franches  "  ;  for  he 
had  a  taste  quickly  attracted  by  human 
depravity  unblushingly  confessed.  Yet  the 
amorphous  beauty  of  his  "  Essais  "  was, 
252 


nnber  a  Dogwood  wttb  jflDontatane 

as    he    sincerely   boasted,   unquestionably 
his  own  invention. 

Clement  Marot's  edition  of  Villon,  pub- 
lished in  1533,  was  probably  on  one  of  Mon- 
taigne's five  circular  shelves  side  by  side 
with  the  pretty  "  L'adolescence  Clemen- 
tine." At  all  events,  there  is  a  strong  sug- 
gestion of  Villon's  literary  characteristics 
in  the  **  Essais."  The  "  Testaments  "  of  Vil- 
lon should  be  studied  while  reading  Mon- 
taigne; their  splendid  jargon  furnishes 
many  a  glimpse  deep  into  his  spiritual 
lair,  and  opens  up  riches  lying  between 
his  words.  But  there  was  really  no  per- 
sonal resemblance  between  the  rascally 
poet  and  the  highly  honest  and  honorable 
essayist.  What  seems  to  me  to  appear, 
upon  comparison,  is  a  kinship  based  deep 
in  literary  egotism.  Certain  it  is  that  if 
Montaigne  had  committed  low  crimes  and 
high  crimes,  no  matter  what  their  nature, 
he  would  have  promptly  confessed  and  pa- 
tiently described  them  in  his  "  Essais,"  as 
Villon  had  done  a  century  before  in  his 
poems  regardinghistroublesconnected  with 
burglaries,  robberies,  murder,  and  the  like. 
253 


"Clnber  a  Dogwood  wltb  /iDontatGne 

Montaigne's  literary  invention  opened 
the  way  for  the  modern  prose-essayists. 
We  need  not  deny  Sainte-Beuve's  origi- 
nality when  we  point  out  his  indebted- 
ness to  the  **  Essais  "  ;  indeed,  it  would  be 
hard  to  find  a  great  writer  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  seventeenth  century  who 
has  not  been  under  literary  obligations 
dating  back  to  Montaigne  and  sealed  with 
his  delightful  mastery  of  diction.  Florio's 
translation  of  the  **  Essais  "  appeared  in  Eng- 
land in  1603,  and  if  the  autographs  in  the 
British  Museum  are  genuine,  we  know  that 
Shakspere  and  Ben  Jonson  each  possessed 
a  copy.  It  is  the  best  English  translation, 
albeit  by  no  means  satisfactory.  Florio 
was  an  Italian,  born  in  London,  who  be- 
came a  teacher  of  French  and  Italian  at 
Oxford,  and  most  of  the  faults  in  his  Mon- 
taigne are  clearly  due  to  haste;  some  of 
them  seem  not  so  easily  accounted  for; 
but  upon  the  whole  it  is  a  most  dehghtful 
rendering.  We  need  a  thoroughly  good 
modern  translation,  however,  to  bring  the 
"Essais"  within  the  understanding  of  our 
times,  when  books  are  read  at  a  run. 
254 


TUn^er  a  BoG^voo^  wttb  /iDontalgne 

We  could  have  an  accurate  one,  with 
the  English  reading  up  to  date  in  com- 
position and  spelling,  punctuation  and  dic- 
tion. Much  depends  upon  the  wisest 
choice  of  words  to  make  Montaigne's 
subtle  meanings  clear.  In  the  French 
text  there  is  no  excuse  for  blundering; 
the  style,  once  you  have  the  key,  gives  a 
light,  each  word  a  glow-worm,  a  firefly, 
showing  its  deepest  significance  with  a 
flash.  The  old  French  is  a  trifle  difficult 
in  its  spelling,  at  first ;  so  a  few  of  Mon- 
taigne's words,  long  ago  modified  or  aban- 
doned, call  for  the  reader's  patience :  but 
very  soon  all  trouble  is  banished  ;  then  who 
would  have  a  single  phrase  altered  ? 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  in 
connection  with  the  study  of  Montaigne 
is  that  none  of  the  critics  has  been  able  to 
make  head  or  tail  of  his  philosophy;  yet 
all  of  them  avow  that  he  was  a  great  phi- 
losopher. Emerson  and  Walter  Pater  have 
given  us  their  utmost  of  acumen  and  ex- 
pression in  the  efi'ort  to  do  the  impossible. 
Pater,  in  his  chapter  on  Montaigne  in 
'*  Gaston  de  Latour,"  almost  surpasses 
255 


•Clnber  a  Boawoob  wttb  /iDontatane 

himself  with  deliciously  spiced  and  cun- 
ningly brewed  appreciation ;  but  "  sus- 
pended judgment  "  discloses  no  philosophy 
— it  is  but  a  beaker  of  literary  bragget. 
Emerson's  **  Montaigne ;  or,  The  Skeptic," 
is  a  fine,  trenchant  literary  review,  inimi- 
tably rich  in  phrases  and  sentences  choicely 
descriptive  of  Montaigne's  style  and  mental 
vigor.  It  is  a  model,  in  its  way,  of  liter- 
ary substance  made  heavy  with  a  fragrant 
sap  of  genius ;  but  where  does  Montaigne's 
philosophy  come  in? 

Yet  these  two  papers — Emerson's  and 
Pater's — in  different  ways  expose  with 
charming  effect  the  splendid  inner  core 
of  Montaigne's  literary  gift  to  the  world. 
Here  we  are  enlightened  and  helped. 
Montaigne  was  not  a  philosopher,  for 
suspended  judgment  is  not  philosophy; 
no  more  is  mere  impartial  skepticism. 
He  was  a  belletrist  with  a  superb  capacity 
for  saying  just  what  he  thought,  and  with 
an  incomparable  genius  for  thinking  the 
most  engaging,  the  most  enticing,  the 
most  amazingly  acicular,  and,  alas!  often 
the  most  disgusting  things  in  the  world. 
256 


mn^cv  a  DoGWOot)  wttb  /iDontatgue 

He  could  have  come  dangerously  near 
making  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear; 
but,  to  his  immortal  credit,  he  did  not  try 
to  do  it.  What  he  said  he  said  with  ab- 
solute mastery  of  verbal  art;  but  he 
obscured  no  meaning  with  a  mist  of 
fascinating  diction.  The  worst  and  the 
best  of  his  thoughts  are  taken  at  a  glance ; 
they  stand  out  from  the  page  like  jeweled 
bosses  on  a  shield,  or  like  repellent  gar- 
goyles on  a  medieval  building. 

Still,  Montaigne  has  tremendously  af- 
fected the  world's  attitude  in  the  seat  of 
philosophy.  His  chat  was  a  skirmish-fire 
by  which  a  great  battle  was  opened.  He 
knew  his  place,  moreover,  and  fairly  esti- 
mated the  character  of  his  work.  In  the 
frankest  mood  he  laid  bare  the  inmost 
pecuHarities  of  his  own  mind.  He  called 
himself  ''  un  philosophe  impremedite  et 
fortuite  "  (*'  an  unpremeditated  and  hap- 
hazard philosopher  "),  which  is  a  self-defi- 
nition quite  as  satisfactory  as  his  system  of 
skeptical  analysis.  We  find  him  ready 
with  a  doubt  on  most  subjects  of  supreme 
moment;  but  the  story  of  the  halcyon's 
^7  257 


IHnDer  a  Bogwoob  witb  /iDontatgne 

nest  strikes  him  as  true  beyond  cavil.  In- 
deed, he  is  delightfully  contradictory.  In 
his  preface  he  says:  "  C'est  moy  que  je 
peins,"  and  ''  Je  suis  moymesme  la  matiere 
de  mon  livre."  (''  It  is  myself  that  I  de- 
pict." *'  I  am  the  substance  of  my 
book.")  This  he  reiterates  many  times; 
but  three  fourths  of  his  matter  relates  to 
what  is  very  far  from  himself. 

Montaigne's  literature  is  Shakspere's  in 
the  raw  materials  :  the  wisdom,  the  folly,  the 
greatness,  the  littleness,  the  coarseness, 
the  amenities,  the  seriousness,  the  humor, 
the  ineptitudes,  the  irony  of  life — every- 
thing is  in  the  literary  hash;  but  all  is 
prose  monologue,  Montaigne  loquitur. 
He  was  not  tragic,  however;  but  deep 
under  his  placid  indifference  lay  the 
abysses  of  human  fate,  and  into  them 
he  let  fall,  with  an  air  of  playfulness, 
many  a  searching  plummet  that  struck 
bottom.  "J^  n'enseigne  point ;  je  ra- 
conte"  ("I  do  not  teach;  I  tell"),  he 
says,  quite  without  reference  to  what  our 
modern  realists  boast  of.  No  burden  of 
**  moral  purpose  "  was  offered  as  an  ex- 
258 


"dn^er  a  Dogwoob  with  /iDontatgne 

cuse  for  dabbling  in  every  puddle,  clean 
or  filthy,  to  which  his  feet  happened  to 
stray. 

For  the  most  part,  the  "  Essais  "  are  good 
reading  in  the  open  air  under  a  tree.  A 
fresh  woodland  place  suits  them,  a  place 
where  vegetable  mold  and  sprouting  wild 
bulbs  give  forth  an  Arcadian  smack  of 
originality  not  altogether  satisfying,  yet 
charmingly  primeval.  A  purple-flowered 
pitcher-plant  close  by  me,  the  dogwood- 
blossoms  overhead,  and  a  faint  smell  of 
deer-tongue  plantain  went  well  with  a  pas- 
sage like  this  in  Book  III,  Chapter  VII: 
"  When  I  think  of  growing,  it  is  humbly, 
with  a  retarded  and  timid  progress."  Or 
with  this :  *'  I  should  probably  like  better 
to  be  second  or  third  in  Perigord  than  first 
in  Paris."  Or  this:  "I  have  such  a  shy 
soul  that  I  do  not  reckon  good  fortune 
by  its  height,  but  by  its  accessibiHty." 
Yonder  wood-thrush,  peering  into  a  wisp 
of  foliage  and  starting  back  again  and 
again,  has  the  same  spirit.  Montaigne 
took  what  offered  least  resistance. 

We  naturally  look  into  the  "  Essais  "  ex- 
259 


IDLuDer  a  Bogwoob  witb  /IDontatGue 

pecting  to  find  there  the  soHtary  man's 
love  of  nature;  but  Montaigne's  curiosity- 
was  about  humanity.  He  brooded  over 
the  records  and  vestiges,  tracking  traits 
and  taking  character  unawares.  An  in- 
veterate closet  student,  not  a  scholar,  a 
lover  of  books  and  book-lore,  there  is  not 
in  all  literature  a  more  engaging  pedant, 
nor  is  there  a  more  enticing  bit  of  descrip- 
tion than  his  light  and  free  sketch  of  the 
room  in  which  he  studied  and  wrote.  It 
was  a  high  place,  on  the  third  floor  of  a 
tower,  overlooking  a  wide  landscape.  Be- 
low was  the  main  entrance  to  the  chateau  ; 
the  garden  and  the  courtyard  were  in  view, 
as  well  as  nearly  every  part  of  the  house ; 
and  he  took  great  delight  in  the  situation 
on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  climbing  up 
to  it.  Speaking  of  the  library,  he  said: 
**  There  I  pass  most  of  my  days ;  there 
most  hours  of  every  day." 

He  speaks  of  books  as  his  most  faithful 
friends,  and  he  had  many :  five  rows  of 
shelves  all  around  the  circular  room — 
which  was  sixteen  paces  in  diameter — 
were  filled  with  them.  The  wall  had  but 
260 


"Cinder  a  BogwooO  wttb  /iDontatane 

one  open  space,  which  was  just  large 
enough  for  his  desk  and  chair.  "  There," 
he  says,  **  I  turn  the  leaves  of  this  book  or 
that,  leisurely,  without  system  or  design. 
Sometimes  I  reflect,  walking  to  and  fro, 
and  dictate  and  record  my  dreams,  which 
here  you  see." 

Opening  on  the  library  was  a  Httle  ante- 
room just  large  enough  for  a  fireplace, 
pleasantly  lighted,  a  cozy  nook  for  a  study 
in  winter;  but  Montaigne  liked  warming 
his  mind,  as  well  as  his  body,  with  walk- 
ing. He  thought  of  building  a  gallery  or 
veranda  to  his  study,  as  he  regarded  every 
retired  place  incomplete  without  a  prome- 
nade ;  but  he  dreaded  the  trouble  of  con- 
structing it.  *'  My  thoughts  sleep  if  I  seat 
them,"  he  remarks ;  "  my  wit  will  not 
budge  if  my  legs  do  not  shake  it  up." 

The  tower  was  a  windy  place  in  winter; 
for  the  chateau,  as  the  name  Montaigne 
implies,  was  on  a  considerable  eminence, 
not  far  from  Bordeaux,  of  which  city  Mon- 
taigne was  for  some  time  mayor.  But  he 
preferred  his  round  room  to  Paris,  even. 
He  called  it  his  seat— his  *'  throne,"  Florio 
261 


Tllnbet  a  BogwooD  wltb  /iDontatgne 

adds.  It  was  the  one  place  wherein  he 
was  absolute  lord,  and  over  which  he  ruled 
exclusively.  Neither  wife  nor  children 
dared  enter  without  his  permission. 

Miserable,  to  my  mind,  is  he  who  has  no  place 
of  his  own,  where  he  may  be  solitary,  where  he  may 
court  himself  or  hide. 

He  declared  that  books  afforded  him 
recreation,  pastime,  sport. 

If  any  person  says  to  me  that  it  is  abasing  the 
Muses  to  use  them  only  for  play  and  pastime,  he 
does  not  know,  as  do  I,  how  much  pleasure,  play, 
and  pastime  are  worth ;  I  had  well-nigh  said  all 
other  aims  are  ridiculous.  I  live  from  one  day  to 
another,  and,  speaking  reverently,  I  live  but  for  my- 
self ;  my  purposes  end  there.  When  young  I  stud- 
ied for  show;  then  to  cultivate  myself;  now  to 
amuse  myself;  never  for  acquirement.  I  had  a 
vain  and  unbridled  taste  for  that  sort  of  goods, 
not  only  to  serve  my  turn,  but,  somewhat  beyond 
that,  to  adorn  and  polish  myself ;  I  have,  to  a  de- 
gree, given  it  up.  Books  have  many  pleasing  quali- 
ties to  those  who  know  how  to  choose  them ;  but 
there  is  no  sweet  without  its  bitter.  It  is  a  pleasure 
no  more  pure  and  perfect  than  others ;  it  has  its 
drawbacks— very  strong  ones.  The  mind  is  exer- 
cised, but  the  body,  of  which  I  have  not  forgotten 
the  care,  rests  meanwhile  inactive,  shrinks,  and 
262 


XDln^er  a  IDoGWoob  vvttb  /IDontalane 

becomes  pitiful.  I  do  not  know  an  excess  more 
injurious  to  me  or  more  to  be  avoided  in  my  declin- 
ing years. 

I  never  read  that  passage  without  see- 
ing the  writer  before  me;  I  can  identify 
him,  even  to  the  sedentary  sag  at  the 
elbows  of  his  perfumed  jerkin,  and  the 
introverted  expression  of  his  eyes.  No 
wonder  that  he  refused  to  go  down  to 
Bordeaux  when  he  was  mayor  and  a 
pestilence  was  there!  He  wrote  a  letter 
instead,  for  writing  was  his  strong  point, 
and  told  the  people  that  he  thought  it 
scarcely  prudent  for  him  to  leave  the 
salubrious  air  of  his  hilltop  study  and 
plunge  down  into  a  stratum  of  plague- 
stench!  Cholera  or  what  not,  he  re- 
mained where  he  was,  dallying  between 
the  ham  and  the  bottle,  for  the  lasting  de- 
light of  us  all. 

No  man  cared  less  for  office  than  he,  no 
man  more  for  himself.  This  self-interest 
was  not  petty  selfishness,  for  he  was  sin- 
gularly liberal  and  beloved  by  everybody. 
He  was  an  invalid  fighting  a  distressful 
disease,  growing  old  in  middle  life;  and 
263 


xant)er  a  Dogwoot)  wttb  /IDontaigne 

he  had  the  ''  Essais  "  to  write.  "  La  gloire 
et  le  repos  sont  choses  qui  ne  peuvent 
loger  en  meme  giste."  ("  Glory  and  tran- 
quillity are  things  which  cannot  lodge  in 
the  same  room.")  What  he  most  desired 
was  tranquillity.  "  II  fault  faire  comme 
les  animaux  qui  effacent  la  trace  a  la  porte 
de  leur  taniere."  ("One  must  do  as  the 
animals  that  leave  no  track  at  the  entrance 
of  their  cave.")  So  he  shut  himself  up 
with  his  books  and  his  art,  determined  to 
be  true  to  himself  as  an  organism,  and  to 
write  just  what  he  thought,  having  for  his 
aim  a  style  exactly  the  opposite  of  what 
the  ''precious"  school  were  doing.  *'Je 
naturaliserois  I'art,  autant  comme  ils  arti- 
hsent  la  nature."  ("  I  would  naturalize  art 
as  much  as  they  artilize  nature.")  He 
more  than  did  it ;  he  overdid  it,  as  real- 
ists of  great  force  seem  bound  to  do,  even 
Shakspere  not  excepted. 

What  was  frank  and  unconscious  ideal- 
ism in  Greek  art  becomes  brutal  natural- 
ism when  one  takes  it  for  a  model. 
Montaigne  had  a  motto  which  he  formu- 
lated thus :  "  Our  life  is  part  folly,  part 
264 


xanber  a  DoGWOOb  wttb  /IDontatGue 

wisdom ;  and  he  that  writes  of  it  but  rev- 
erently and  nicely  lets  go  the  better  half 
of  it."  That  is  very  true;  the  trouble, 
however,  comes  later,  when  this  so-called 
*'  better  part  "  crowds  out  everything  else 
and  makes  life  appear  all  folly  or  worse. 
Even  in  mere  literature,  written  for  the 
sake  of  verbal  art  and  the  turning  of  ele- 
gant phrases,  this  thing,  which  begins  as 
but  the  '*  recognition  of  evil,"  has  a  way 
of  expanding  and  opening  until  it  swallows 
up  every  other  perception  of  life.  It  is 
as  Montaigne  says  of  the  lackey :  '*  Give 
him  the  privilege  of  speaking  for  you,  and 
he  is  not  clever  in  the  least  if  he  does  n't 
usurp  your  place  and  give  you  his." 
'  He  says :  **  My  nature  chooses  my  lan- 
guage for  me  " ;  but  his  nature  had  been 
domesticated  by  the  strong  force  of  educ- 
tion. The  wild  beast  in  him  showed 
itself  only  in  the  way  he  had  of  playing 
with  a  subject,  as  a  cat  with  a  mouse,  be- 
fore he  fell  upon  it  tooth  and  claw  to  make 
a  meal  of  it.  Every  reader  must  envy 
him  his  unbroken  leisure,  which  enabled 
him  to  work  without  taking  account  of 
265 


mnt)er  a  Dogwoot)  witb  /IDontalone 

time,  and  to  reckon  without  a  view  to 
money.  His  literature  grew  by  the  labor 
of  love;  and  he  grudged  every  moment 
filched  from  it  by  eating  and  sleeping. 
''Whoever  could  dine  on  the  smoke  of  a 
roast  would  make  a  pretty  saving."  He 
dined  upon  the  effluence  of  books.  Even 
when  he  traveled  he  carried  a  library  with 
him,  content  without  reading  if  he  knew 
that  a  volume  was  always  within  reach, 
like  a  friend  asleep,  to  be  made  entertain- 
ing by  a  touch. 

Montaigne  speaks  of  an  ancient  rheto- 
rician who  boasted  that  it  was  his  business 
to  shuffle  small  things  so  as  to  make  them 
appear  important,  an  art  not  despised  by 
the  philosopher  of  Perigord  himself  when 
he  felt  his  brain  running  dry  and  his  Latin 
sources  of  quotation  in  danger  of  exhaus- 
tion. Indeed,  the  business  of  decking  out 
trifles  in  the  laces  and  ruffles  designed  by  a 
clever  phrase-maker  can  still  command  its 
admirers  and  its  devoted  practitioners.  It 
was  not  Montaigne's  petty  facilities,  how- 
ever, nor  yet  his  graceful  attention  to 
unimportant  things,  that  fixed  him  forever 
266 


XDlnber  a  Boawoob  vvttb  /IDontatgne 

in  the  world's  attention.  He  was  the  ear- 
liest essayist,  and  he  is  still  the  first. 
Plato's  poetical  and  dream-shot  diction 
did  not  materialize,  and  Aristotle's  style 
was  devoid  of  charm  ;  moreover,  the  Greek 
mind  was  too  busy  with  sensuosities  and 
the  delights  of  physical  life  to  waste  pre- 
cious time  in  leisurely  and  studious 
thought.  Even  in  the  book-burdened 
Alexandrian  days,  when  every  educated 
Greek  thought  himself  a  critic,  nothing 
closely  like  a  true  essay  was  written. 

The  Romans  had  a  clearer  comprehen- 
sion of  practical  life,  as  we  moderns  accept 
it,  than  their  Hellenic  art  masters,  which 
should  make  us  expect  from  Cicero  better 
essays  than  he  wrote.  He  had  style,  a 
clear  head,  and  wide  knowledge ;  but  a 
piece  of  literature  like  the  *'  Somnium 
Scipionis,"  the  "  De  Amicitia,"  or  the  '*  De 
Senectute "  fails  to  be  satisfactory  to  us 
in  comparison  with  what  Montaigne  and 
Addison,  or  even  Carlyle  and  De  Ouincey, 
have  given  us,  not  to  mention  Lamb. 
The  Greeks  were  jocund,  but  they  lacked 
humor  of  the  sort  which  distinguishes  the 
267 


mn^cv  a  S)oawoot>  witb  /iDontalgne 

genius  of  essay ;  and  the  Romans,  as  is 
best  seen  in  Horace,  were  ironical  and 
satirical  rather  than  humorously  clever. 
In  a  word,  ancient  humor,  like  that  of  our 
greatest  American  genius,  Poe,  was  apt  to 
choose  a  grotesque  expression.  Some- 
times a  most  serious  Greek  mood  hits  the 
modern  mind  with  a  dull  stroke ;  as,  for 
example,  in  this  epitaph  by  Simonides : 

06  xaxa  toot'  iXfjcuv,  aXXa  xkt'  $|XT:opiav. 

I,  Brotachus  from  Gortyna,  here  lie  ;  but  !  came 
here  not  to  be  buried,  only  to  trade ! 

Upon  the  whole,  it  seems  to  be  a  pretty 
good  joke  on  the  merchant  that  he  got 
into  the  ground  instead  of  a  trade. 

Montaigne's  father  educated  him  in 
perhaps  the  best  possible  way  to  make  an 
essayist  of  him;  and  he  was  a  lifelong 
student,  with  the  wonder  of  literary 
suggestion  continually  exploding  in  his 
mind,  even  at  times  when  the  world 
around  him  spun  madly  in  the  throes 
of  pestilence,  political  dissolution,  and 
268 


XHnber  a  BogwooD  wttb  /iDontatgne 

indiscriminate  warfare.  His  method  of 
composition,  however,  indicates  a  natural 
origin  in  his  peculiarities  of  character  and 
a  development  by  reason  of  close  and 
curious  self-study.  The  entire  man  is  in 
his  work,  stalking  about  unreservedly, 
naked  or  clothed,  as  the  chance  caught 
him,  at  many  points  too  frankly  natural; 
in  this  regard  very  Hke  and  very  unlike 
the  Greek  masters,  notably  Theocritus. 
Emerson  says: 

Montaigne  is  the  frankest  and  honestest  of  all 
writers.  His  French  freedom  runs  into  grossness ; 
but  he  has  anticipated  all  censure  by  the  bounty 
of  his  own  confessions. 

This  was  a  part  of  his  method,  a  sort  of 
pleading  guilty  with  a  most  fascinating 
tumble  upon  the  mercy  of  the  court. 
Guile  it  was,  but  the  air  of  it  how  guileless! 
He  was  a  perfect  diplomat.  His  chateau 
stood  ostentatiously  open  and  unguarded 
during  a  time  of  pillage  and  protracted 
lawlessness,  he  being  a  privileged  person 
on  account  of  his  clever  suavity  and  a 
269 


xanDer  a  BoqwooD  voitb  /IDontatane 

knack  of  being  all  things  to  all  men.     But 
Emerson  is  true  when  he  further  says : 


The  sincerity  and  marrow  of  the  man  reaches  to 
his  sentences. 


I  cannot  feel  satisfied  with  Emerson's 
singular  verb  with  a  double  nominative; 
but  Montaigne's  words  certainly  are 
''vascular  and   alive." 

It  is  a  chief  ingredient  of  the  essay,  this 
contradiction  of  truths,  this  collision  of 
amenities,  by  which  a  fine  patchwork 
grows  from  page  to  page ;  and  the  writer 
must  know  how  to  make  uncomplementary 
colors  blend  at  the  lines  of  contact  with  a 
striking  appearance  of  sympathy  in  their 
discord.  Montaigne's  sincerity  was  almost 
excessively  cunning,  likewise  his  self- 
depreciation  ;  yet  in  the  outcome  he  in- 
variably seems  to  have  pulled  the  wool 
off  our  eyes  instead  of  over  them.  His 
personal  note  never  fails  to  please,  even 
when  the  burden  of  his  words  is  grievous 
to  our  sense  of  sight,  taste,  smell,  or  to  the 
deeper  consciousness  of  propriety.  He 
270 


XHn^er  a  BoqwooD  voitb  /IDontaigne 

was  a  Diogenes  in  a  golden  tub,  not  in  the 
least  disheveled  or  absent-minded,  well 
aware  of  his  own  indecencies,  while  re- 
cording those  of  the  passing  crowd ;  but 
to  every  individual  he  sped  the  catchword 
of  irresistible  human  sympathy,  and  his 
voice  and  countenance  were  supremely 
winning. 

There  is  a  marked  dramatic  element  in 
the  genuine  essay;  the  writer  stands  as 
the  actor,  and  at  best  advantage  when 
apparently  forgetful  of  his  art,  doing 
wonders  as  if  by  the  happy  accident  of 
temperament  and  conditions.  Montaigne 
talked  to  his  literary  ego  with  an  air  of 
one  meeting  a  charming  stranger  on  a  long 
stage-coach  journey;  then  he  annotated 
what  he  said,  and  interpolated  it  with 
passages,  more  or  less  apropos,  from  the 
ancient  poets,  mostly  Latin.  His  recipe 
does  not  vary  :  his  beginnings  are  all  alike ; 
his  style-texture  neither  degenerates  nor 
improves ;  on  to  the  end,  like  a  fine  animal 
running  by  scent  after  its  prey,  he  doubles 
and  circles  and  digresses,  yet  keeps  the 
track,  meantime  mouthing  dehghtfully. 
271 


xan^er  a  Dogwood  witb  /ICiontatGne 

The  pursuit  is  really  more  satisfactory  than 
the  killing,  in  that  the  actor  seems  less 
conscious  of  himself  awrente  calanio  than 
when  he  stops  to  jab  at  a  conclusion  that 
must  be  impaled. 

Indeed,  the  essay  is  not  best  troubled 
with  a  bulb  at  its  end ;  nor  do  statements 
obviously  ex  cathedra  suit  its  main  need, 
which  is  disclosure  rather  than  demonstra- 
tion. Montaigne  opened  a  subject,  as 
lightning  opens  a  cloud,  by  frequent  and 
forceful  illumination  from  within,  while 
running  all  through  it.  He  had  system, 
but  not  regularity  nor  order;  for  is  not 
artistic  disorder  an  organic  law  of  the 
essay  ?  The  art  which  plays  hide-and-go- 
seek  with  its  subject  tantalizes  us  to  the 
last  refinement.  Montaigne  knew  the 
trick  of  it.  **  Le  vray  champ  et  subiect 
de  I'imposture  sont  les  choses  incogneues," 
he  says,  in  his  quaint  old  French;  and 
he  was  a  master  of  jugglery  with  recon- 
dite scraps. 

A  considerable  part  of  his  recipe  con- 
sisted of  his  own  experience,  which  he 
used  to  illustrate  and  also  to  decorate 
272 


mnt)ec  a  H)Oowoo^  witb  /iDontatane 

what  he  had  to  say  about  matters  distantly- 
remote  from  both  his  time  and  his  field 
of  actual  knowledge.  He  would  piece 
together  scraps  of  ancient  history  and 
biography,  interspersed  with  gores  and 
gussets  and  borders  of  autopersonality 
dehghtfully  unreserved,  a  method  which 
leads  the  reader  a  merry  dance  back  and 
forth  between  B.C.  500  and  A.D.  1570,  or 
thereabout  And  his  ostentatious  erudition 
is  absolutely  neutralized  by  this  fine,  gen- 
tle, and  unassuming  personal  element  ap- 
pearing and  reappearing  so  opportunely. 

The  nineteenth  chapter  of  Book  I  of 
the  "  Essais  "  may  be  taken  as  a  shining 
example  of  Montaigne's  method.  It  was 
written  before  he  had  become  a  profes- 
sional essayist,  and  the  amateur's  enthusi- 
asm runs  through  it  like  a  Hve  wire  from 
phrase  to  phrase.  Death  had  never  before 
been  so  politely  flattered  or  so  jocundly 
snubbed ;  nor  to  this  day  has  any  writer 
driven  a  pen  deeper  into  the  core  of  life 
as  the  sanest  biologists  now  understand  it. 
As  usual,  he  was  right  and  he  was  wrong 
in  pretty  even  measures;  but  how  facile, 
''  273 


tanber  a  BogwooD  witb  /IDontaiane 

how  candid,  how  punctiliously  suave  and 
literary!  What  one  poet  had  said  chal- 
lenged his  diligence  to  find  usable  verses 
by  a  dozen  more.  His  philosophy  seems 
to  step  from  quotation  to  quotation  in 
crossing  dangerous  rapids ;  nor  does  it 
matter  with  him  how  contradictory  or 
morally  repugnant  his  excerpts  may  ap- 
pear; his  turn  is  served  by  the  nicety 
with  which  they  are  made  to  range  them- 
selves in  the  intervals  so  as  to  hold  him  up 
out  of  his  own  eddies  and  riffles. 

Montaigne  talked  with  his  pen  instead 
of  his  tongue,  as  Emerson  intimates,  yet 
he  was  vigilantly  mindful  of  his  diction; 
he  made  hterature,  and  it  was  bookish, 
lamp-smoked  literature,  smelling  of  old 
tomes  and  fringed  with  cobwebs.  Take 
away  from  the  *'Essais  "  what  conscious  and 
patient  literary  craftsmanship  put  into 
them  and  they  will  be  grievously  shredded. 

It  is  a  very  scant  and  defective  biog- 
raphy that  can  be  constructed  from  what 
the  *'Essais"  tell  of  Michel  de  Montaigne's 
life.  The  result  is  scarcely  better  when 
we  attempt  to  set  up  his  philosophy.  Like 
274 


XHnber  a  Dogwoot)  with  /IDontatgne 

Emerson  in  our  day,  he  uttered  pithy  and 
immensely  suggestive  sentences,  some- 
times not  particularly  related  one  to  an- 
other. His  reader  finds  almost  every  page 
curiously  entertaining  and  fertilizing — a 
mixture  of  boldness  and  timidity,  unques- 
tionably human,  often  exasperatingly  frank 
where  reserve  would  be  beautiful,  and  re- 
served where  caution  seems  cowardice. 

Montaigne  was  not  a  coward :  judged 
by  the  whole  body  of  his  writings,  far 
from  it;  no  man  of  his  time  was  bolder, 
and,  to  my  understanding,  he  greatly  over- 
states the  case  of  his  selfishness.  "  I  mas- 
ter and  consider  nothing  but  myself,"  he 
remarked,  and  **  Si  j'en  prenois  qui  me 
guidast,  ma  mesure  pourroit  faillir  a  la 
sienne "  (''  If  I  should  take  a  guide,  my 
measure  would  not  be  his");  and  yet, 
while  asserting  selfishness  and  insisting 
that  he  mentions  others  only  to  exhibit 
himself,  he  leaves  the  impression  of  a  free- 
hearted, kindly,  and  just  man.  He  says, 
**  I  cannot  hold  a  grudge,"  and  that  he 
was  incapable  of  very  violent  feelings;  he 
despises  a  liar,  avoids  maudlin  people,  and 
275 


IHn^er  a  DogwooD  wttb  /IDontatgne 

lives  "  de  la  seule  assistance  de  personnes 
saines  et  gayes  "  ("  with  but  the  help  of  the 
healthy  and  the  blithe ").  He  belongs 
with  "  natures  belles  et  forte,"  the  "  solid 
and  fine."  "  History  is  my  pursuit  "  (''  mon 
gibier"),  **and  poetry  I  like  with  a  natural 
bent."  He  has  little  to  say  of  the  best 
contemporary  poetry,  however,  apparently 
preferring  Etienne  de  la  Boetie  to  all  the 
melodious  innovators  of  his  day.  Of 
Ronsard  and  Du  Bellay  he  speaks  casu- 
ally, with  respectful  indifference,  saying 
that  *'  they  have  done  credit  to  our  French 
poetry " !  And  when  he  speaks  of  the 
"  rich  descriptions  of  one  and  the  delicate 
inventions  of  the  other,"  there  lies  between 
his  lines  a  subtle  criticism  of  the  classical 
innovations  of  the  "  Pleiade."  *'  II  en  est 
de  si  sots,  qu'ils  se  destournent  de  leur  voye 
un  quart  de  lieue  pour  courir  aprez  un 
beau  mot!  "  ("  Certain  fools  will  go  half  a 
league  out  of  the  way  to  run  after  a  fine 
word!  ")  We  can  but  wonder  what  he 
would  have  said  of  Gautier,  Baudelaire, 
Guy  de  Maupassant,  not  to  mention  Eng- 
lish and  American  logolepts  of  our  day. 
276 


tinker  a  Dogwood  wltb  /IDontat^ne 

Recently  there  has  been  much  said,  even 
by  college  men,  against  classical  study. 
Not  an  original  word  has  been  offered, 
however,  for  Montaigne  said  everything 
that  there  was  to  say  on  that  side.  The 
next  time  that  Dr.  Andrews  prepares  a 
paper  on  "practical  education,"  let  him 
quote,  with  some  wise  evasions.  Chapter 
XXV  of  the  first  book,  Montaigne's  clev- 
erly keen  puncturing  of  academic  wind- 
bags. But  here  again  our  philosopher, 
*'  unpremeditated  and  haphazard,"  contra- 
dicts himself  by  sowing  Latin  quotations 
and  classical  allusions  with  the  whole  bag. 
Indeed,  what  would  be  left  of  him  were 
his  debt  to  Greek  and  Latin  subtracted 
from  his  literary  capital?  Hear  him  at 
another  time  when  in  a  different  mood : 

"  Je  suis  degouste  de  la  nouvellete, 
quelque  visage  qu'elle  porte."  ("  I  am  dis- 
gusted with  novelty,  whatever  its  vis- 
age.") He  stands  up  for  old  laws,  old 
customs,  old  books  (see  Book  I,  Chapter 
XXH),  and  is  a  strong  advocate  of  old-time 
standards  of  action.  Plutarch  and  Seneca 
were  his  favorite  authors ;  but  he  divides 
277 


xnnDer  a  DogwooD  wltb  /ffi>ontatgne 

allusions  pretty  evenly  between  Plato  and 
Aristotle. 

It  has  been  frequently  said  that  Mon- 
taigne almost  invented  the  modern  method 
of  science  study.  I  think  that  any  careful 
reader  will  go  to  the  length  of  observing 
that  he  anticipated  Frobel.  His  philoso- 
phy of  education,  reduced  to  its  best 
terms,  means  just  what  Frobel's  does; 
and  our  eloquent  Colonel  Ingersoll  is  in- 
debted to  him  for  the  broad  and  enlight- 
ened suggestion  that  the  rod  as  an  educator 
is  a  brutal  teacher.  *'  Je  n'ay  veu  aultre 
effect  aux  verges,  sinon  de  rendre  les  ames 
plus  lasches,  ou  plus  malicieusement  opini- 
astre."  ("  I  have  seen  no  other  effect  of 
rods  than  to  render  spirits  more  careless, 
or  more  atrociously  obstinate.") 

We  are  told  that  the  late  Lord  Tenny- 
son was  averse  to  explaining  his  poetry, 
but  was  rather  glad  to  leave  it  for  other 
imaginations  to  read  into  it  the  utmost 
possible  riches  of  beauty  and  splendor.  It 
was  Montaigne  who  remarked,  three  hun- 
dred years  ago,  that  *'  an  observant  reader 
often  sees  more  in  an  author's  writings 
278 


IHnDer  a  S^ogwooO  witb  /iDontatgne 

than  the  author  ever  dreamed  of  saying  "  ; 
then  he  adds  that  a  look  and  a  sense  of 
greater  richness  is  somehow  given  them ; 
which  reminds  us  of  our  erudite  Browning 
commentators  and  our  Whitman  enthusi- 
asts. As  for  Montaigne  himself,  one  has 
but  to  read  his  essay  on  pedants  (Book  I, 
Chapter  XXIV)  to  see  that  he  understands 
the  trick  of  which  he  complains;  indeed, 
he  openly  winks  at  his  own  pedantry,  and 
in  his  long  critique  (to  call  it  that)  on 
some  verses  of  Vergil  he  gives  a  fine  prac- 
tical demonstration  of  how  to  get  the 
blood  of  a  turnip  out  of  the  pulp  of  a  pear. 
What  Vergil  never  dreamed  of  is  what  the 
critic  is  most  busied  withal. 

From  the  glimpses  we  have  given  one 
might  safely  guess  what  Montaigne's  man- 
ner, as  a  philosopher,  would  be.  He  ad- 
mits that  his  aim  in  writing  the  "  Essais  " 
was  to  make  a  patchwork  without  form, 
flung  together  as  if  by  chance,  adding  that 
his  book  would  not  have  a  likeness  in  all 
literature.  He  has  been  denounced  as  an 
infidel :  he  was  not  one ;  nor  was  he  a 
skeptic  in  the  narrow  sense.  His  philoso- 
279 


Vln^cv  a  Dogwood  witb  /IDontai^ne 

phy  was  sincerity  itself,  which  he  urged 
to  the  excess  of  unbridled  coarseness,  so 
much  did  he  dread  the  appearance  of 
mincing  the  truth.  Certainly  he  called  a 
spade  a  spade  without  wincing.  The 
church  did  not  escape  his  open-handed 
liberality  of  investigation,  but  at  bottom 
he  was  not  irreverent;  he  frankly  applied 
such  common  sense  as  he  possessed  to 
everything  that  challenged  his  reason.  In 
those  days  the  priestly  attitude  was  far 
more  jealous  than  it  is  now;  both  the 
Cathohc  and  the  Protestant  went  about 
grimly,  chip  on  shoulder,  hankering  for 
trouble.  Montaigne  kept  near  the  middle 
of  the  road  with  his  genial  "  que  scays 
je?"  and  prodded  carelessly  to  left  and 
right  with  a  dangerous  boar-spear,  as  if  it 
were  the  gentlest  thing  in  the  world  to  im- 
pale something  alive  and  sacred  to  the  ig- 
norance and  superstition  of  his  time.  It 
was  his  way  of  showing  his  impartiality 
and  his  amiable  temper.  With  such  an 
air  of  innocence  and  with  so  many  self-ac- 
cusations and  protestations  of  invalidism 
and  approaching  senility  did  he  potter 
280 


'an^er  a  5)ogwoo^  witF)  /IDontat^ne 

away  at  his  doubt-building  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  avoid  humoring  him.  If  he 
hit  you  on  the  ear,  he  immediately  jabbed 
his  own  nose,  so  that  the  score  was  even 
and  resentment  out  of  the  question.  You 
actually  sympathized  with  your  assailant's 
mood,  and  regretted  that  he  had  punished 
himself  so  rashly,  albeit  justly. 

He  saw  that  quackery  was  at  its  highest 
in  his  day,  and  he  gave  the  doctors  of  medi- 
cine hard  blows  under  cover  of  a  delight- 
ful humor.  Hear  him  speak  of  "  cette 
grimace  rebarbatifve "  with  which  they 
.went  about!  He  had  a  sense  of  the  grim 
trick  of  it  all.  He  trusted  to  nature,  and 
died  of  a  quinsy  at  fifty-nine.  But  there 
was  a  larger  quackery  into  which  he  poured 
a  curious,  flickering,  and  wandering  side- 
light of  examination.  He  would  tell  the 
**  effect  of  things,"  he  said.  Where  will 
this  lead  us  to?  What  do  we  expect  to 
discover  on  this  road?  These  were  his 
inquiries ;  but  he  had  so  harmless  an  air 
that  no  person  seeing  him  would  suspect 
him  of  delving  deep  by  the  wayside. 
Neither  Calvin  nor  the  Pope  could  have 
281 


XHnDer  a  H)0GW00b  wttb  /IDontaigne 

condemned  him  outright;  he  fought  so 
cleverly  for  and  against  both.  The  doc- 
tors of  divinity  fared  as  doubtfully  at 
his  hands  as  the  dispensers  of  drugs;  yet 
who  treated  religion  more  honestly  than 
he? 

Montaigne  was  a  lord ;  he  lived  at  a 
time  and  in  a  country  not  the  least  suited 
to  our  present  political  ideas,  certainly  not 
encouraging  to  democratic  liberty.  In 
some  way,  however,  he  reached  a  point  of 
view  from  which  he  looked  over  into  the 
fair  domain  of  human  brotherhood.  While 
stickling  for  the  distinction  of  conventional 
nobility  he  laid  down  the  broad  rule  of 
individual  liberty  and  manhood  equality. 
Freedom  was  a  personal  right,  as  he  re- 
garded it,  a  self-privilege,  with  the  function 
of  examining  and  deciding  all  things. 
What  is  seen  is  seen  through  one's  self; 
what  is  known  is  known  through  one's  self. 
The  man  is  all  men  to  himself.  ''  La  plus 
grande  chose  du  monde,  c'est  de  scavoir 
estre  a  soy."  (*'  The  greatest  thing  in  the 
world  is  to  know  how  to  belong  to  one's 
self.")  Upon  this  sort  of  foundation- 
282 


TUnDer  a  Do^wooD  witb  /iDontatgne 

blocks  he  built,  better,  perhaps,  than  he 
knew.  It  was  a  point  of  view  which 
showed  him  that  the  Turks,  and  even  the 
beasts  of  the  field,  were  less  savage  than 
the  hordes  of  Christians  wading  in  human 
blood  all  over  Europe.  He  reasoned  that 
a  Turk  was  but  a  Turk,  a  dog  but  a  dog ; 
a  Christian  ought  to  be  but  a  Christian. 
Is  it  heresy  to  expect  Christ's  followers  to 
show  the  world  a  sweet  life  and  a  noble 
aspiration?  We  have  no  trouble  making 
out  Montaigne's  innocence  of  mere  polemi- 
cal destructiveness,  when  we  keep  in  mind 
his  surroundings.  In  the  name  of  Christ 
men  were  robbers,  murderers,  devastators. 
Pizarro  and  De  Soto  were  his  contempora- 
ries; from  his  tower  at  Montaigne  he 
could  see  the  smoke  of  torment,  could 
hear  the  clash  of  foray,  could  smell  the 
effluence  of  carnage,  all  under  the  banner 
of  the  cross.  In  his  philosophy  there  was 
room  to  doubt  the  agreement  of  cause  and 
effect.  He  doubted  then,  as  the  best 
Christians  doubt  now,  and  had  the  hardi- 
hood to  set  down  upon  paper  just  what 
was  in  his  mind,  as  Christians  are  not  apt 
283 


mnber  a  Bogwoob  wltb  /iDontatgne 

to  do  now — for  fear  of  losing  a  professor- 
ship, a  pulpit,  a  vote,  or  a  shop-customer! 
Montaigne  would  have  regarded  our  re- 
cent reformers  with  a  very  casual  interest. 
His  sympathies  stopped  short  of  every 
plan  for  making  human  nature  over  again 
and  thus  eliminating  evil.  It  was  his  best 
business  to  observe, 

with  eye    serene, 
The  very  pulse  of  the  machine. 

Why  look  at  ethics  with  a  pretense  of 
bilious  melancholy  and  atonic  weakness? 
Does  salvation  depend  upon  refusing  to 
smile  when  you  are  amused  ?  Must  the 
human  being  wither,  deny  its  functions, 
die  a  mummy,  in  order  to  flourish  in 
heaven  ?  As  for  doing  evil,  that  is  another 
thing;  but  evil  seemed  to  him  not  pos- 
sessed of  so  broad  a  field  as  the  church 
would  insist  upon  granting  to  it.  "  II 
fault  retenir,  a  tout  nos  dents  et  nos 
grififes,  I'usage  des  plaisirs  de  la  vie."  ("  We 
must  hold,  with  teeth  and  nails,  to  the 
practice  of  life's  pleasures.")  It  is  a 
good  rule ;  but  the  individual  claiming 
284 


IHnber  a  Bogwoc^  witb  /IDontatgne 

under  it  may,  as  did  Montaigne  himself, 
sometimes  construe  pleasure  to  mean  too 
much  for  safe  morals. 

Set  a  rogue  to  catch  a  rogue ;  but  a 
philosopher  is  a  poor  spy.  I  am  not  sur- 
prised at  Emerson's  failure  to  detect  Mon- 
taigne. Goethe  and  Byron  fell  further 
short.  The  sage  of  Perigord  took  himself 
flagrante  delicto,  and  was  delighted  with 
turning  himself  over  bodily  to  justice. 
His  philosophy  forced  him  upon  his  own 
boar-spear,  where  he  writhed,  greatly 
amused,  as  a  dreadful  example  of  what 
man  looked  like,  viewed  from  his  window. 
He  knew  that  no  man's  knowledge  was 
complete,  be  the  man  saint  or  sinner,  Pope 
or  reformer,  and  his  **  que  scays  je?  "  was 
but  the  radical  sign  over  the  doubt  of  each 
honest  soul.  How  far,  in  fact,  does  my 
absolute  knowledge  go?  The  root  of  the 
problem  is  plus  or  minus,  but  never  a  per- 
fect number  to  any  person. 

Montaigne     did     not    philosophize    for 

philosophers ;    the   estimate    of    his   work 

with  a  pen,  recorded  by  himself,  is  that  it 

suits    the    need   of    average   men.     What 

285 


TIlnt)er  a  2)0GW00t)  wttb  /iDontalgne 

Goethe,  or  Byron,  or  Emerson,  or  their 
likes,  might  find  admirable  or  faulty  in  his 
chatty  remarks  was  of  less  moment  than 
the  stories  told  him  by  his  servant-man 
who  had  been  in  America  and  knew  some- 
thinsf  about  the  habits  and  customs  of 
savages.  It  was  not  much  to  him  that 
Calvin  said  this  or  that ;  his  tailor-boy  was 
a  great  liar,  —  would  not  tell  the  truth  even 
when  truth  would  best  serve  his  purpose, 
— and  there  was  matter  for  thought.  The 
tailor- boy  was  more  like  the  average  man 
than  John  Calvin  or  Martin  Luther.  When 
he  quoted  from  Horace,  or  Plutarch,  or 
Plato,  it  was  not  to  tickle  the  ears  of  schol- 
ars ;  the  sayings  of  Aristotle  or  of  Diogenes 
were  not  stones  to  be  flung  at  the  head  of 
a  king ;  everything  was  offered  to  the  bluff, 
honest,  average  mind.  "  I  should  like  to 
die  planting  my  cabbages."  "  I  prefer  sec- 
ond or  third  place  in  Perigord  to  first 
place  in  Paris."  He  liked  to  converse 
with  peasants,  adventurers,  country  gen- 
tlemen. It  was  thus  he  got  close  to  real 
life,  and  his  philosophy  was  simply  facts 
followed  by  a  question-mark. 
286 


lander  a  DoovvooD  witb  /IDontaione 

A  mind  like  Montaigne's  is  aware  that 
reform  is  an  infection,  not  a  contagion — a 
germ  in  the  air,  not  a  private  leaven  in  the 
pot  of  a  zealot.  He  knew  that  Luther 
was  not  the  real  power  of  the  tidal  wave 
then  shaking  the  foundations  of  medieval 
Christian  religion,  but  only  the  stormy- 
petrel  winging  fierce  circles  just  above  the 
waves.  He  knew  that  Calvin  was  not 
Christ  come  again ;  the  recent  things  were 
not  the  old  things  revived;  the  reformers 
were  but  creatures  of  the  average  aspira- 
tion, mere  voices  of  the  average  need  of 
the  time.  And  so,  without  premeditation 
or  plan,  the  Seigneur  de  Montaigne  gave 
to  paper  and  immortality  a  record  of  his 
thoughts  right  in  the  midst  of  an  epoch- 
making  throe  of  the  world.  Tesla,  in  his 
quiet  study  or  workshop,  at  this  moment 
of  calm  and  peace,  is  not  more  oblivious 
of  cataclysmal  war  than  was  Montaigne  in 
his  defenseless  chateau  with  the  very  earth 
rocking  under  him.  Little  cared  he  for 
the  tides  of  progress  beginning  to  foam.' 
His  day  was  good  enough  for  him,  and 
"  if  I  could  chock  our  wheel,  and  stop  it 
287 


lIlnDer  a  Boowoo^  vvttb  /IDontatone 

right  here,"  he  remarks,  "  I  would  do  it 
with  good  heart"  All  that  he  sought 
to  do,  all  that  he  did,  was  to  look  into 
himself  and  write,  not  to  build  a  philoso- 
phy, not  to  reform  the  world,  but  merely 
to  unload  his  mind  of  a  plethora  of  sinceri- 
ties as  contradictory,  as  coarse,  as  refined, 
as  groveling,  and  as  lofty  as  human  nature 
itself. 

Reared  in  affluence,  at  a  time  when 
affluence  almost  demanded  excesses  bor- 
dering on  the  brutal, — for  the  feast  was  a 
gorge,  conviviality  meant  probable  rest 
under  the  table,  in  those  days, — Montaigne 
early  contracted  physical  maladies  of  a 
sort  to  affect  a  man's  temper.  The  red 
wines  of  Medoc  could  not  charm  away  the 
avenger  of  mensal  excesses  to  which  were 
added  less  venial  affronts  to  corporal 
soundness;  besides,  there  was  pestilence 
blowing  on  almost  every  wind  in  and  out, 
with  Bordeaux  as  a  center.  War,  itself  a 
disease,  scattered  plague-seeds, — microbes 
fortunately  had  not  been  discovered, — 
while  alternations  of  famine  and  plethora 
288 


nnber  a  Bodwoob  wttb  /iDontalGue 

did  what  absolute  ignorance  of  sanitary- 
science  suggested.  So  it  is  well  to  bear  in 
mind  that,  like  Carlyle,  Montaigne  was  a 
literary  invalid  ;  but,  Hke  Burns  and  Lamb, 
he  gained  by  suffering,  if  not  absolute 
Greek  joyousness,  certainly  a  fine  jocund 
air,  which  refracts  our  rays  of  vision  and 
hangs  a  glamour  over  his  most  amazing 
improprieties. 

We  have  remarked  that  his  education 
could  scarcely  have  been  better  suited  to 
his  need  as  an  essayist;  but  education 
includes  more  than  mere  schooling.  The 
historic  atmosphere  in  which  a  man  lived 
— the  ozone  and  the  miasma  of  his  time — 
must  always  be  taken  largely  into  our 
measurements  of  what  he  knew  and  how 
he  was  influenced  by  it.  Montaigne's  fa- 
ther probably  noticed,  being  a  curious  and 
shrewd  person,  that  Michel,  his  third  son, 
had  an  extraordinary  mind,  for  he  began, 
in  the  boy's  early  childhood,  experiment- 
ing upon  his  intelligence  with  unorthodox 
modes  of  teaching.  The  future  essayist 
was  cradled  and  suckled  by  a  peasant 
woman,  and  his  first  six  years  were  spent 
^9  289 


XDlnDer  a  BoqwooD  with  /IDontatane 

among  plebeian  children,  while  Latin  was 
dinned  in  his  ears  by  tutors  who  could  not 
speak  French.  At  the  same  time  Greek 
had  a  turn  at  him  with  the  aid  of  an  ob- 
ject-lesson performance. 

Montaigne,  the  chateau  where  Michel 
was  born,  a  little  way  from  Bordeaux,  at- 
tracted attention  in  those  days,  and  has 
ever  since,  being  one  of  the  favored  spots 
sought  out  by  distinguished  wayfarers  and 
avoided  by  plunderers.  The  boy  had  his 
run  there  before  going  down  to  the  Col- 
lege de  Guienne,  where  he  began  in  his 
seventh  year,  with  such  teachers  as  George 
Buchanan  and  Marc  Antoine  Muret,  the 
curious  course  then  set  for  pupils  of  tender 
age.  And  for  seven  years  he  was  ground 
between  the  upper  and  nether  stones  of 
that  huge  mill,  where  two  thousand  boys 
like  him  swelled  a  universal  tide  of  longing 
for  release.  Then,  not  yet  fourteen,  he 
escaped  from  the  college  and  took  up  the 
study  of  law !  A  year  later  we  find  him 
watching  the  progress  of  a  riot  in  Bor- 
deaux ;  and  when  he  was  about  twenty- 
five  he  saw  the  siege  of  Thionville,  at 
290 


XDlnOer  a  Do^woot)  wttb  /IDontalgne 

which  time  he  was  a  counselor  in  the  Par- 
Hament  of  Bordeaux,  evidently  not  with- 
out distinction. 

Montaigne  married  at  the  age  of 
thirty-three.  He  had  seen  all  sides  of  life, 
taken  his  fill  of  pleasures,  and  now  he 
felt  the  need  of  rural  quietude  in  which 
he  could  nurse  his  lesions,  if  not  to  a  cure, 
at  least  with  great  benefit.  His  elder 
brothers  had  died,  likewise  his  father, 
leaving  him  the  estates  and  the  family 
title;  therefore,  in  15 71,  his  thirty-eighth 
year,  already  broken  physically  beyond 
permanent  cure,  he  went  to  live  at  the 
chateau  of  Montaigne,  where  the  literary 
bee,  long  humming  in  his  bonnet,  began  to 
sting  him  sorely.  He  sharpened  some 
quills  and  fell  to  jotting  down  his  thoughts. 

Montaigne's  schooling  had  been  curi- 
ously literary  and  dramatic,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  extreme  classicism  with 
which  his  great  contemporary,  Ronsard, 
gave  a  new  brilliance  to  French  poetry ; 
but  the  genius  of  the  essayist  struck 
through  its  academic  cocoon  and  took  life 
at  first  hand ;  it  used  the  books  of  the 
291 


xanber  a  Dogwood  witb  /IDontalgne 

dead  past  as  stepping-stones  to  cross  the 
streams  of  his  own  inquiry,  and  somewhat, 
too,  it  must  be  admitted,  for  mere  pedantic 
ornamentation  cleverly  set  into  the  struc- 
ture of  his  work.  There  is  not  a  trace  of 
genuine  poetry  in  the  "  Essais,"  save  what 
is  quoted  from  other  writers ;  every  drive 
of  the  pen  is  at  a  fact,  or  what  was 
thought  to  be  the  significance  of  a  fact,  in 
the  spirit  of  modern  science,  if  not  in  its 
light,  and  with  what  modern  science  seems 
strangely  afraid  of — style.  While  every- 
thing was  fish  for  his  net,  nothing  was  too 
trivial  to  be  well  said. 

Into  the  composition  of  an  essay  he  put 
the  winnowed  observations  of  all  his  past 
life  bearing  in  any  degree  upon  the  subject 
in  hand,  together  with  what  wide  ransack- 
ing of  books  had  afforded  him  in  available 
form.  He  had  a  great  memory,  as  is 
shown  by  his  quotations,  slight  lapses  from 
accuracy  proving  that  they  were  not 
copied  directly,  but  as  recollected  ;  and  his 
sense  of  that  armorphous  grace,  which  is 
the  essay's  stamp  of  structure,  was  fault- 
less. He  built  walls  of  rubble;  but  no 
292 


Xllnber  a  Bogwoot)  witb  /IDontatgne 

stone  was  chosen  that  had  not  an  attrac- 
tive side  to  be  turned  outward.  He  had 
taste,  even  when  coarseness  overcame  him. 

It  might  seem,  to  a  careless  onlooker, 
that  an  essay,  like  the  best  of  Montaigne's, 
could  be  just  as  well  written  in  a  dozen 
different  ways.  The  experiment  has  been 
often  tried,  only  with  the  result  of  testify- 
ing against  the  main  theory.  Lamb 
caught  Montaigne's  trick  of  structure  in  a 
remarkable  degree ;  but  compare  Theo- 
phile  Gautier's  essays  with  Montaigne's, 
and  note  the  difference.  The  materials 
most  searched  for  by  Gautier  and  his  dis- 
ciples were  words  and  the  phrase ;  splen- 
dor of  diction,  kaleidoscopic  phrase-setting, 
the  paragraph  turned  with  Giotto's  sweep 
of  perfection — these  were  of  first  dignity  in 
their  esteem ;  but  the  old  essayist  bent  his 
genius  hard  upon  the  things  he  had  in 
mind  to  say,  and  it  was  his  steadfastness 
in  concentrating  his  reason,  while  amusing 
himself  with  crystals  of  fact,  that  gave 
form  to  his  work. 

Considering  the  state  of  human  know- 
ledge at  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
293 


Xllnber  a  2)ogwooC>  witb  /IDontatgne 

tury,  it  is  amazing  to  review  the  range 
and  variety  of  Montaigne's  facts.  He  dug 
at  the  root  of  everything  in  sight — with  a 
primitive  hoe,  to  be  sure ;  and  the  bulbs  he 
unearthed  have  been  but  sHghtly  modified 
by  three  centuries  of  tireless  cultivation.  It 
is  his  way  of  w^histling  and  soHloquizing 
while  at  work,  however,  that  most  capti- 
vates us ;  there  his  humor  breaks  forth,  and 
there  his  gentle  virility  flowers ;  we  look 
ahead,  while  deep  in  his  philosophy,  for  the 
next  shallowing  and  rippling  of  the  stream, 
— almost  any  figure  will  serve  in  speak- 
inofof  the^Essais," — and  are  not  in  the  least 
surprised  no  matter  what  comes  to  the 
surface;  for  his  materials,  although  they 
appear  hopelessly  incongruous,  somehow 
fall  together  and  generate  beautiful  affini- 
ties, or  some  filament  of  delicious  sophistry 
joins  them  as  a  spider's  web  links  drops  of 
dew  and  dangling  flies. 

In  the  forty-sixth  essay  of  the  first  book 
we  have  a  peep  at  the  method  used  by 
Montaigne  in  collecting  his  materials.  It 
is  not  an  essay,  but  the  outline  of  one,  a 
succession. of  items  with  running  remarks 
294 


lUnber  a  H)ogwoob  witb  /iDontatgne 

— he  calls  it  a  galifnafree — on  the  subject 
of  names.  It  forms  itself,  as  it  progresses, 
after  the  fashion  of  a  rolling  snowball, 
that  takes  up  chips,  stones,  leaves,  and 
what  not,  as  well  as  snow,  then  begins  to 
tumble  into  pieces  of  its  own  weight,  but 
continues  to  roll  and  gather.  One  thing 
about  this  galimafree  (pot  o'  hash)  is  that 
an  essay  on  names  cannot  be  written 
without  using  its  materials.  They  are  the 
cream  of  the  subject — or  is  hash  made  of 
cream? — down  to  Montaigne's  date.  The 
same  may  be  said  about  almost  every  one 
of  the  "  Essais." 

Leisure  is  the  nurse,  ease  the  cradle,  of 
the  essay;  but  when  we  remember  that 
Montaigne  was  writing  his  incomparable 
jumbles  in  the  midst  of  that  awful  struggle 
called  the  Civil  Wars,  we  must  recognize 
the  great  exception.  He  was  the  literary 
hero  of  dying  medieval  history ;  his  pen 
scratched  its  precious  pot-hooks  gaily 
through  an  eightfold  storm  of  murder, 
and  he  passed  away  six  years  before  the 
Edict  of  Nantes  was  issued.  Yet  what 
almost  infinite  show  of  untroubled  calm 
295 


mn^er  a  Dogwood  wttb  /iRontatgne 

in  his  writings!  It  seems  probable  that 
he  played  the  interesting  invalid's  tune  to 
all  the  rough  riders  of  those  days  when 
they  arrived  at  the  chateau,  as  he  certainly 
did  to  the  people  of  Bordeaux  when  he 
was  their  mayor  and  a  dire  pestilence 
struck  them.  He  shied  off  to  his  country- 
seat  and  nursed  his  own  health. 

But  from  his  undefended  room  he  looked 
forth  upon  the  life  around  him,  permitting 
no  detail  to  go  by  without  scrutiny.  He  had 
the  sensitiveness  of  great  genius  to  drafts 
from  the  future,  and  he  felt  the  coming 
changes  in  science,  literature,  art,  religion, 
life — saw  forward  almost  to  Browning  and 
the  agnostics,  backward  to  the  horizon. 
And  over  all  this  space  his  mind  was  a 
somewhat  whimsical  drag-net,  with  meshes 
small  enough  for  minnows  and  strong 
enough  for  leviathan. 

Montaigne's  life  spanned  the  period 
from  1533  to  1592,  which,  in  French  his- 
tory, incloses  as  much  song  as  war.  He 
was  the  contemporary  of  Ronsard,  Reg- 
nier,  Olivier  de  Magny,  Louise  Labe,  and 
the  'Tleiade"— that  hive  of  busy  hum- 
296 


TUnber  a  Dogvvoob  wttb  /TOontat^ne 

mers  ;  but,  admirable  critic  though  he  was, 
he  had  not  tried  creative  work  and  failed, 
in  order  to  prove  his  capacity  for  pointing 
out  the  failures  and  successes  of  others. 
Nor  yet,  with  the  charming  tinkle  of 
Marot's  hlasons  and  coq  a  I'dne,  and  the 
clever  turns  of  Brodeau's  new  rondeaus  in 
his  ears,  and  with  Marguerite  of  Angou- 
leme  still  singing  when  he  was  a  lad,  did 
he  give  the  warblers  any  distinguished 
notice,  but  gathered  from  them,  by  that 
indirect  mode  of  observation  peculiar  to 
born  essayists,  many  a  delicate  turn  of 
diction  and  here  and  there  a  brilliant  flash 
of  irony. 

Not  by  choice,  but  by  force  of  tempera- 
ment and  the  trend  of  the  times,  he  found 
himself  occupying  a  point  of  view  on  the 
ground  between  Rome  and  Reformation, 
in  a  skeptical  attitude  toward  both,  yet  too 
well  saturated  with  the  religion  in  which 
he  was  born  to  die  outside  its  forms.  He 
may  be  taken,  as  Emerson  took  him,  for 
the  type-specimen  of  the  genus  doubter; 
but  his  doubts  were  not  mere  polemical 
stones  hurled  at  sacred  traditions.  He 
297 


xan^er  a  BogwooD  witb  /IDontaigne 

wished  to  investigate  every  subject  for 
himself,  and  as  far  as  his  Hght  reached  he 
did  investigate  right  independently.  A 
large  and  significant  part  of  his  materials 
was  drawn  from  the  field  of  thought 
opened  by  the  frightful  religious  battles 
of  his  time.  He  went  about  open-eyed, 
eager  to  discover  the  "  why  "  of  things,  as 
much  pleased  with  a  ground  for  curious 
conjecture  as  was  Gilbert  White  with  a 
swallow's  burrow,  or  Izaak  Walton  at 
sight  of  a  trout-pool. 

Montaigne's  materials,  however,  were 
chosen  for  the  essay's  sake  more  than  for 
philosophy's  sake  or  close  argument's 
sake,  as  any  reader  can  see  as  he  runs. 
What  he  aimed  at  was  a  rosary  of  facts, 
anecdotes,  examples,  instances,  strung 
upon  a  thread  of  impartial  comment, 
which  should  disguise  as  much  as  betray 
his  own  private  theory.  The  modern 
"  scientific  "  pose  is  a  vast  exaggeration  of 
his  attitude.  His  skepticism  forced  him 
hard  back  upon  nature,  where  he  boldly 
took  himself  to  deep  water,  laughing  all 
the  time  in  frank  acknowledgment  of  that 
298 


TUnber  a  DoGWOob  vvitb  /IDontaigne 

ludicrous  figure,  his  own  image  in  the 
flood;  for  he  was  always  sincere  and 
always  just. 

Emerson  has  dissected  Montaigne's 
skepticism  with  keen  precision ;  but  he 
failed  to  comprehend  how  the  needs  of  the 
essayist  interfered  with  the  philosopher's 
investigations.  **  'T  is  of  no  importance 
what  bats  and  oxen  think,"  he  observes; 
but  Montaigne  was  of  a  different  opinion. 
To  him  one  thing  was  about  as  important 
as  another.  The  religion  of  Christ  served 
him  no  better  for  a  chatty  essay  than  liars, 
or  smells,  or  pedantry,  or  names,  or  the 
vanities  of  speech.  Whatever  happened 
to  challenge  his  spirit  of  inquiry  suggested 
an  essay  as  a  main  object,  and  he  rum- 
maged his  memory  and  experience  and 
foraged  in  books  for  wherewithal  to  build 
it.  In  very  large  part  his  materials  were 
literary — that  is,  they  were  selected  with 
a  view  to  literary  art,  and  not  for  investi- 
gation's sake  alone.  Much  of  his  skepti- 
cism comes  out  incidentally  while  he  is 
chinking  up  the  crevices  of  his  work. 

Finally,  we  may  say  that  Montaigne's 
299 


iSXn^cv  a  H)ogwoob  witb  jflDontaigne 

personal  intercourse  with  men  of  every 
degree  furnished  him  rich  materials  for  his 
work.  It  might  be  Amyot,  grand  almoner 
of  France  under  Charles  IX,  told  him  an 
anecdote  of  the  Due  de  Guise  at  the  siege 
of  Rouen,  or  it  might  be  a  sailor,  just  re- 
turned from  newly  discovered  America, 
who  described  the  savages  to  him ;  a  ser- 
vant did  this,  or  Cicero  had  said  that:  it 
was  all  material  and  welcome  to  his  pot  of 
galimafree. 

There  was,  after  all,  this  great  lack  in 
the  taste  which  governed  Montaigne's  in- 
tellectual and  moral  activities :  he  felt  little 
of  what  may  be  called  nature's  purple  at- 
mosphere ;  romance  scarcely  appealed  at 
all  to  his  mind,  and  still  less  did  the  mani- 
fold beauties  of  landscape,  birds,  flowers, 
brooks,  clouds,  horizons  affect  him.  He 
glanced  forth  casually,  and  remarked : 
"  Touts  nos  efforts  ne  peuvent  seulement 
arriver  a  representer  le  nid  du  moindre 
oyselet,  sa  contexture,  sa  beaulte,  et 
I'utilite  de  son  usage;  non  la  tissure  de  la 
chestifve  araignee."  {"  All  our  efforts  can- 
not reach  to  reproducing  the  nest  of  the 
300 


mribcv  a  Bogwoot)  wttb  /iDontat^ne 

tiniest  little  bird,  its  structure,  beauty, 
adaptability ;  not  even  the  web  of  the 
wretched  spider.")  Then,  without  further 
notice  of  what  the  splendid  face  of  nature 
wore  on  its  ever  fresh  features,  he  turned 
back  to  Plato  and  Vergil,  Aristotle  and 
Cicero,  inquiring  of  them  about  himself; 
or  he  resumed  the  leisurely  discussion  of 
some  general  human  frailty.  And  his 
intelligence,  as  Pater  says,  "  dividing  evi- 
dence so  finely,  Hke  some  exquisite  steel 
instrument  with  impeccable  sufficiency," 
was  not  to  be  turned  aside  or  used  in  the 
dissection  of  those  haunting  dream-clouds 
forever  hovering  near  us. 

But  the  sun  went  down  low  in  the  west ; 
the  shadows  coalesced;  a  mocking-bird's 
vesper  sweetness  rang  far,  and  its  tender- 
ness spread  apace  with  a  hint  of  twilight. 
The  dogwood-blossoms  flickered  strangely, 
while  on  the  air  a  woodsy  scent — a  dewy 
mold-fragrance — increased  until  there  was 
a  hint  of  danger  in  it.  How  long  ago 
Montaigne  lived!  Where  is  he  now? 
Far  off  a  horned  owl  hooted  dolefully ;  so 
I  gathered  up  my  books,  shook  my  mind, 
301 


XHnDer  a  S)ogvvoob  witb  /IDontatane 

as  it  were,  whistled  to  challenge  the  mock- 
ing-bird, and  while  the  sky  softened  to  re- 
ceive the  stars,  and  the  distant  mellow 
boom  of  the  sea  became  a  significant  part 
of  approaching  night,  I  trudged  homeward, 
wondering  what  good  thing  would  prevail 
at  dinner.  "  Ce  n'est  pas  raison  que  I'art 
gaigne  le  poinct  d'honneur  sur  nostre 
grande  et  puissante  mere  nature."  ("  There 
is  no  reason  that  art  should  gain  the  point 
of  honor  over  our  great  and  powerful 
mother  nature.") 


102 


JAN 


%9 


N.  MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA  46962 


